Seanan McGuire (seanan_mcguire) wrote,
Seanan McGuire
seanan_mcguire
  • Mood: happy
  • Music: Jonathan Coulton, "Chiron Beta Prime."

In which ASL makes everything AWESOME.

Yesterday, I was demonstrating to a friend of mine (who finds my fascination with ASL charming, if odd) that I can now sign "Behold! For now I wear the human pants!" My grammar is a little wonky, but I'll be seeing Judi in a few weeks, so right now I'm just working on getting the signs committed to muscle memory.

A Deaf gentleman about my age saw me signing, and got very excited. He came over, and signed, "You know ASL?" (In the case of signs that I don't know myself, but whose meaning was evident from context, I'm including them to form actual sentences.)

I signed back "A little." Emphasis on "little."

He asked what I knew...so I showed him. Around the time I hit "working in a mine for our robot overlords" and "did I say overlords? I meant protectors," he started to look, well, dubious. Like there was a chance I thought I knew some ASL, when really, someone was messing with me.

Then I signed "The Turtle can't help you."

His eyes widened, and he proceeded to finger-spell "IT?" I nodded. He made an "S" sign, followed by a gesture like putting on a crown. I nodded again. He got even more excited, especially since now he knew I actually understood my messed-up assortment of signs. He had me teach him "robot overlords," and he taught me the sign for "weird."

ASL and Stephen King: bringing the world closer together. The best part is that, for once in my life, I can legitimately say that the Turtle did help us.
Tags: good things, in the wild, silliness, stephen king, wild adventures
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  • 62 comments

mskauri

February 19 2010, 16:48:55 UTC 7 years ago

And so goes our heroine, on the path of the beam.

I have to laugh--most Deaf folks get "Hi...my name is _______" or "Do you read lips?" from neophyte signers. That guy's probably telling all his friends about his conversation with the Hearing woman with the robot overlords. And I bet it's making ALL their days!

Did he teach you "weird" with 3 fingers that scrunch up and release as you move your hand across your nose, or "weird/strange/odd" where you rotate your hand in a C shape 45 degrees in front of your nose? Just curious...

netpositive

February 19 2010, 17:39:28 UTC 7 years ago

I know version (1), which I always think of as "flying W"; didn't know there was a second.

My variation on (1) which I shared with the co-worker who taught sign to me was to do the sign forwards and then backwards if we wanted to intensify it to "REALLY weird" or "even weirder". Which formulation we did need sometimes. :)

mskauri

February 19 2010, 18:56:28 UTC 7 years ago

I'm a fluent signer--did my grad work at Gallaudet (the Deaf universtity in Washington, DC)--and even though I've been signing for nearly 30 years (ye GODS!! THIRTY YEARS!!) and spent a fair bit of that time formally and casually teaching others ASL, I am still captivated by the grammar and syntax of the language.

Another way to emphasize is to move the sign s-l-o-w-l-y and squinch up your eyes and lips a bit....the slower the movement and greater the squinching, the more emphasis.

A third way to emphasize is to move the sign sharply. Hard to describe in written English, but hopefully that makes sense.