Comercio Electrónico

The etymon of this sign is most likely the French sign aller (go), where the two extended index fingers rotate alternatively as they move away from the body. Long (1910) describes an earlier form of the ASL sign in his entry succeed that suggests this link with aller: “with the extended index fingers raise the hands, revolving the fingers around each other.” Higgins (1923) illustrates the sign as originating with the index fingers pointed down and ending pointed up near the signer’s temples. Today, when used to mean

“finally,” the sign is commonly glossed as pah and is co-expressed with a nonmanual marker where the mouth opens resembling the articulation of the English syllable pa.

fine

This sign, like fancy (see entry), comes from the old French sign jabot (ruffles), which depicts the lace or cloth ruffles on the front of the shirts of the upper class in the eighteenth century.

fine was incorporated into both monsieur and madame (depending on whether male or female preceded it; see father, man, and woman).

The small movement of the hand toward the chest represents the layers of lace. Though the etymological link between jabot and its contemporary derivatives has been lost in modern France, the link has remained intact in the consciousness of Americans.

Several authors, old and new, explicitly refer to the connection. Higgins (1942)

ASL finally, succeed

LSF aller ( Pélissier 1856 )

ASL fine

Ruffles on a shirt ( Piroux 1830)

102 first

describes the sign as “indicating the fancy ruffles and laces formerly affected by so-called gentleman and ladies”;

and Costello (1994) says the sign shows “the ruffles on the front of a fine, old- fashioned shirt.” A recent change consists of wiggling the fingers to mean

“cool” or “neat.”

firs t

This contemporary form of first maintains its etymological connection to LSF through the use of the extended thumb to signal the number 1 (see “un (One): The Hidden Number,” p. 239).

Either because of pressures to accom-modate to the U.S. system of counting or assimilation, first is sometimes produced with an extended left index finger instead of the thumb, distancing it from un.

fit

This sign is nearly identical to the LSF adapté (fitted ), except that the hands assume claw handshapes rather than keys. The hands represent two small objects that are fitted together. Ferrand equates the “fitting” of the two hands to the hinged lid of a snuffbox (circa 1785). In ASL, the hands are configured in loose claws and the fingers come together and interlock. This gives the impression of fitting together two grooved objects, like cogs on a wheel.

ASL first

ASL fit

flip out 103

fl at ter

The extended left index finger is caressed by the right hand, conforming to the etymology of the correspond-ing English verb. Flatter comes from the French flatter, meaning “stroke or caress.” Though this sign is not docu-mented in historical texts, the extended index finger is often used to represent a person, an iconic use that appears in several ASL signs, including champion, pick on, recruit, and situation (see entries).

flip o ut

Long (1910) illustrated this sign with the outer edge of the right hand oscil-lating over the left hand to depict a wavy line, and it meant “wrong.” For its antonym, right, he showed the right hand moving in a straight line across the left palm. The contemporary sign flip out is an extension of the original meaning of “wrong,” such that one who is flipping out is perceived as wrong in the head. The movement has changed so that the right hand moves down from the forehead to the left palm and slides from the heel to the fingertips before abruptly bending. This move-ment is closely related to the older ASL form by representing a straight mental path that then bends or breaks.

Davis (1966 ) describes it as “veering off the main course.” Stokoe et al. (1965) identify the sign as both wrong and unsound, reinforcing the shift in mean-ing from the generic wrong to the more specific flip out.

ASL flatter

ASL flip out

ASL wrong (YD from Long 1910)

ASL right (YD from Long 1910)

104 flirt

flir t

The oscillating fingers used in this sign convey the metaphorical mean-ing of “shiny thmean-ings,” which we also see in the origins of the signs color and friendly (see entries). The short movement of the hands away from the signer’s body gives the impression that the signer is transmitting flattering words to another individual. Higgins (1942) describes flirt as “just words from the lips towards the person flattered,” indicating that the sign may have originally started at the mouth but has since lowered to the chest.

fl ower

This sign derives from the old French sign fleur (flower), which depicted the

“action of taking a thing in the hand, bringing it to the nose several times to smell it” ( Blanchet 1850). Clark (1885) describes an earlier form of the ASL sign flower as a compound, where the signer first gestured to indicate a flower stem and then “place[d] the right hand near nostrils, as though inhal-ing the perfume.” The first part of the compound has since disappeared, and only the bundled handshape remains to perform the depictive action of grasp-ing a flower and brgrasp-inggrasp-ing it up to each nostril.

ASL flirt

ASL flower

fool, joke 105

fo ol, jo ke

Higgins (1923) documents this sign with the English translations “fool,”

“joke,” and “hoax.” He describes its production as the “right bent index of

‘X’ hand hooked over the nose to pull down with a slight jerk.” The contem-porary ASL form can be produced with either a key ( X ) or ring handshape and is commonly used to mean “fool,” but can also mean “fake” in sports contexts to describe when a player throws off the opposition ( E. Shaw, field observation).

The form with the ring handshape matches the LSF sign être déçu, se faire avoir ( be taken or fooled ), where the signer pulls down his nose with the ring handshape. Lambert (1865) noted the metaphor as “take the nose away from the body.” In French culture, representations of trickery and deception tend to be invoked by the word nez (nose). For example, the expression faire un long nez means “be deceived” and se faire mener par le bout du nez means “be led by the nose,” as a naive person might be. Higgins (1923) confirms this interpretation by charac-terizing joke as “pulled by the nose.”

The semantic derivation from naive, duped, deceived to fool, joke is evidenced by the polysemy of the English words fool and joke; in this case, it refers to the verbs.

ASL fool, joke

LSF être déçu, se faire avoir ( IVT 1986 )

106 for