Confederacy of a Dunce - Life ain't easy for a boy named Sue

Monday, May 14, 2007

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Mrs. Dunce and I spent the past weekend in Glasgow, my first trip to Scotland. I was representing my workplace at a large Deaf event, trying to spread the word about the research we are doing, and to possibly recruit some Scottish BSL signers to participate in some of our studies. It was also a really great opportunity to practice my signing.

But I discovered something rather unfortunate when I started introducing myself to people. In BSL, as in many other sign languages, people often have "sign names", sort of like a signed nickname used in place of fingerspelling someone's actual name. My own sign name was given to me when I first met with a group of deaf researchers, after suffering an unfortunate broken-glasses incident which left me peering through the one remaining lens. It looks exactly like this: LINK.¹

In the southeast (including London), this sign also means "to peep" (as in peeping through a keyhole, and maybe something like a peeping Tom). Perhaps with a vaguely naughty connotation, but nothing too extreme (unless everyone has been having a laugh at my expense....). In Scotland, however, this sign means "pervert", and not a nice, amusing sort of pervert either. When I introduced myself to a Scottish signer for the first time, I got a classic double-take. He asked me if that was really my sign name. When I told him that indeed it was, he proceeded to explain that I should really think about changing my name (maybe something more like "tea", a similarly shaped sign, but at the corner of the mouth. Or maybe something more like "monocle", which is in front of the eye, but with a more open hand). The Deaf equivalent of "Bill, or George, or anything but Sue", I suppose.

Other than the embarrassment of introducing myself "Hi, my name is Pervert", things seemed to go quite well. I chatted to lots of different people about our research and the different things people here are working on, maybe 3/4 of the time in sign language, and only 1/4 of the time in English. I'd rehearsed quite a bit of my patter about the research, but was most worried about not being able to understand people (especially unfamiliar people, in an unfamiliar setting). But as my co-workers predicted, it was no trouble at all.

Next time I'll write about Glasgow itself; we thoroughly enjoyed our long weekend there.

¹A curious coincidence: this same handshape positioned on the forehead means "know-nothing" or "dunce". But I got this sign name before I chose the name of "Dunce" (that only happened when I started up this blog, and found myself faced with the difficult challenge of coming up with a title which, I felt, had to fulfill certain characteristics).

language | travel

Monday, May 14, 2007 3:09:58 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)