And it worked.
And then later I thought, well, how do you say the word "spy?"
The answer online turned out to be "peek"
And I recalled the moment an age ago when Jeff showed me that in a sentence so pure it read like a movie being shown to me and not a sentence being spoken and it was that sentence that suddenly made me understand and changed the whole way I speak.
He told me he saw his teacher from the State Deaf/Blind school in Colorado Springs in the baths in Denver. The sort of thing that could really bug a normal person but didn't seem to bother Jeff at all. I asked him what did the guy do and he answered,
"Peek around the corner. Eye contact. Disappear. Depart."
Grin.
That showed me, thereafter, show it, don't say it, and everything became thought about in visual terms.
3 comments:
There was an episode of The Big Bang Theory where Raj meets a girl who is deaf and it's no longer an impediment that he can't speak to a girl unless he's hammered.
They start dating but the relationship is kind of shallow and everyone finds out that Raj is filthy rich from all the expensive gifts he gives her.
The guys confront Raj about the impropriety of the situation and one of them says, "You shower her with expensive presents and she gives you sex, now what kind of a relationship is that?"
Raj exclaims, "An ideal relationship!!!
I spy with my little eye....
That makes me wonder this.
Is there such a thing as poetry (or "literature" or "art") created exclusively in and for sign-language?
I imagine it might be something like oral poetry (the bard who sings his poem), and something like dance. And something like a silent movie, too.
I know so little (almost nothing) about sign-language, but find it so fascinating (thanks for these glimpses, Chip). There's something poetic about every sign-language "translation" (which is also always a performance); and of course something very poetic about sign-language itself.
What I'm wondering about here is the artistic potential (and uniqueness) of sign-language itself, not supplementing or supplemented by non-sign-language. There must be so much "metaphoric" material (and other literary tropes) exclusive to sign-language. And like, instead of assonance & alliteration (echoing sounds), there are echoing or harmonizing gestures. And of course there's just as much rhythm in the movements of the body, as the soundings of the voice. And I imagine there's something like a grammar, a syntax to it, which can be subverted and played with, for effect.
And then I also wonder. Those who are fluent in sign-language (or primarily communicate in sign-language)-- do they largely "think" in sign-language too? Their interior monologues, so to speak. Some of it must involve (what we non-sign-language "speakers" recognize as) English words and sentences, of course. But a lot of it must also involve the visual gestures Chip describes-- like an interior dance.
Just wondering. I'm so ignorant on the topic, but Chip's anecdote sparks all these questions.
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