The other day I was the first vehicle stopped at a light when a gorgeously restored late 1960’s Pontiac Catalina made a left turn right in front of me. I held up my hand with a “thumbs up” gesture to the driver who nodded in appreciation. I’m pretty sure that we communicated with the simple hand gesture. The thumbs up gesture, however, doesn’t have a universal meaning. For scuba divers, the thumbs up gesture indicates that a diver is heading toward the surface. I read somewhere once that in parts of Europe and the Middle East the gesture of pointing up with your thumb is considered to be offensive. The article said that this was a problem for US soldiers in the 1st Gulf War, when they interpreted gestures intended to be rude as gestures of support.

One possible origin of the gesture is ancient gladiatorial battles, in which the fate of the losing fighter was decided. There is some debate, but it is generally accepted that the gesture was used to indicate whether or not the fighter was to be put to death. Thumbs down meant the fighter would die. Thumbs up meant he would be spared. The origins of the gesture interest me if for no other reason than if this is true it would mean that the gesture has survived longer than Latin as a spoken language. Is it possible that the language of gestures is more lasting than that of speech?

Thinking about my gesture and its warm acceptance by the driver of the car got me to thinking about the now common use of emojis in text messaging. My phone offers a huge catalogue of emojis from which to select. I rarely use emojis at all, and when I do it is most likely to be a simple heart indicating love. I also like one of a person paddling a canoe and use it fairly often. Beyond those two, I’m pretty sure that the one of a thumb pointing up would be the most common in my use. There are hundreds and hundreds that I have never used and probably will not adopt in my common usage.

I still try to use complete sentences and proper punctuation in my text messages. I write out you are instead of typing UR. I don’t know exactly why, other than the simple fact that I love words and enjoy writing. It takes me a bit more concentration to send a text message. Having had issues with trigger thumbs on both hands, I can’t “type” on a phone as quickly as many others. Maybe the thumbs up emoji means, “My thumbs can’t type. I’m using the forefinger on my right hand.”

Pointing with the forefinger is a pretty common gesture, but it can have a lot of different meanings. Recently our youngest granddaughter was speaking to me about something and she was pointing and moving her finger back and forth for emphasis. It looked exactly like some adults when they are scolding a child. I’m pretty sure she has seen someone use that same gesture, most likely one of her parents or grandparents. It was amusing for me to see here use the gesture, and I had to suppress a laugh as I sought to take her seriously.

We gesture with other parts of our bodies as well as with our hands. Crossing one’s arms in front of one’s body can indicate boredom or disapproval. It is a way of saying, “no!” And there is what I call “the look.” From a very young age our daughter was able to indicate disapproval with a flash of her eyes. The interesting thing is that it seems exactly like the look I get from my sister when she disapproves. It reminds me also of a way my mother could set her eyes and communicate without a word. My wife, however, doesn’t use that look with me. She is much more likely to indicate displeasure by using words. When she is angry or upset, she’s more likely to have tears in her eyes than a harsh look. I don’t know for sure where our daughter gained that ability to communicate with a look. If she didn’t get it from her mother, I doubt that she learned it from my sister or my mother. She wasn’t around them enough to learn to imitate their behavior. It seems as if the eye gesture is innate - passed down from generation to generation genetically.

I learned that there was a nearly universal set of hand gestures that was used in trading among North American indigenous people before Europeans started to come to this continent. There were many different languages that were spoken and a wide variety of cultures, but they were able to conduct business through the use of hand gestures. I suspect that some of those gestures persist in the present. It may be that we use some of them in our nonverbal communication without being aware of their source. I know that when I am negotiating a transaction, such as a major purchase, I don’t say very much. I try to communicate as little as possible about my desire for the item being sold. I don’t want to indicate that I am willing to pay too much to obtain it. I want the seller to think that I will walk away from the deal if I don’t get some of what I want, including price concessions. And I have walked away from deals in the past. Once, when a car salesman rejected my offer, I simply stopped negotiating and later bought a vehicle from a different seller. I might have been happy with the vehicle that the first salesman offered, but when he wouldn’t negotiate, I decided I didn’t want it that much. I never regretted my action.

As we begin a new job, I am trying to once again be more conscious of gestures and nonverbal communication. It is a special challenge with the number of meetings that are taking place over Zoom and other tech media. I’m not used to really studying the screen on my computer. I also want to look natural to those who are watching my face on their screens.

The more I learn about communication, the more I discover I need to understand.