The meaning of motions

Who knew there could be so many different gestures with so many different meanings? Francois Caradec enlightens us in his 2005 book Dictionary of Gestures (translated into English in 2018).

Caradec's book is more than 300 pages long, usually with three to five gestures per page. So that's a lot of gestures from around the world, many of them with multiple meanings.

He includes obscene gestures, and there are more of them than you might think, and childhood gestures, and everything in between

Many of these are motions you might not even think of as gestures, such as arm wrestling and playing footsie under the table. Even applause is a gesture that needs explaining in this book.

Most gestures are illustrated, and the drawings often indicate the sex, the age or the nationality of the person most likely to use the gesture. Literary quotations accompany many of the entries.

To make it easier to find the gesture one is looking for, Caradec divides his book into chapters according to the body parts involved in the gesture. Thus, there is a chapter for gestures involving the armpits, the fist, the tongue, teeth, the neck and each finger, as well as every other part of the body.

Because gestures can mean different things in different parts of the world, one needs to be careful. Caradec tells us that American soldiers killed multiple Iraqis who did not stop after being given the halt gesture. It turned out that in the Middle East a raised hand, palm out, is a sign of greeting.