A Day In The Life

Daily Prompt: tell us about a time when you used a word whose meaning you didn’t actually know – or were very wrong about.

I had wanted to learn ASL- American Sign Language, since I was in my 20’s and had seen a friend signing. I was fascinated by the idea of communicating using your hands and fingers. A few years ago I saw ASL was being offered through a local Adult Ed program. I figured this was my opportunity to finally learn, and I immediately enrolled. The teacher was great, and the class was fun. Everyone gave it their best, and we all became fast friends muddling our way through learning the alphabet, in order to be able to finger spell. Our fingers making positions they had never made before.

Sign language is not a universal language – each country has its own sign language, and regions have dialects. ASL is a language with its own rules of grammar and syntax. It uses signs made by moving the hands combined with facial expressions and postures of the body. Unlike English grammar rules, where the subject must go before the verb, Sign allows you to put the subject before or after the verb when dealing with simple sentences; it doesn’t matter which word comes first.  In English you would say: I give the teacher apples. That phrase would be signed,  ME TEACHER — APPLES GIVE. There is no use of the word the. I found many websites where I could practice my finger spelling by watching a hand finger spell and I would type in the answer. Then on to phrases. I finished the 12 week course and was able to finger spell and had learned alot of vocabulary words and how to compose sentences. It was not easy getting the mind to put together the sign for a word, get it into a sentence, use the correct grammar. My brain was working overtime making the hand/word/sentence connection.

When the adult ed course ended I realized if I wasn’t going to use the ASL I had learned, I would forget everything. There was an elementary school for the deaf near where I live so I called to see if I could volunteer there. I was placed in a first grade class. The teacher I was assigned to was a hearing person, and all of the children in the class either had hearing aids or cochlear implants. Both sign and speech were used. I loved learning how to sign the Pledge of Allegiance, and eventually was able to run the “morning meeting” with the kids- signing the day of the week, the month, and asking fun facts of the day. One of the assistants in another class was deaf, and only signed. I was totally intimidated around her about using the little sign I had learned. She told me it was more important to try and make mistakes, than not to try. She was great about helping me along, and oh so patient as it took me forever sometimes to sign a few sentences. I was building up my confidence in signing, and enjoyed learning about Deaf Culture which previously I had no exposure to.

Then one afternoon before leaving school a few teachers were standing around talking, and introduced me to a new young teacher who was joining the staff. He was in his 20’s, and had been deaf all his life. Hesitantly I signed “Hello, My name Lisa. Your name what? Nice to meet you.” In deaf culture this is a standard way of introduction. So far so good. He did have to finger spell his name twice before I got it. It was the end of the day so I thought to ask if he would be leaving and intended to sign “going soon?”

This is what the sign for soon is

Well, the sign I made looked like this:

The other teachers standing there immediately let out a hoot of laughter and a string of NO, NO, NO ‘s!!! I had no idea what I had signed, but found out quickly that having 3 fingers out, or three fingers tucked under made a mighty big difference. I had just asked this man “going Gay?” (as in Homosexual)

We all had a good laugh and I knew I would never make that mistake again.