I met a baby the other day who taught me that kids aren’t learning the thumb-and-pinky-out gesture for “phone” anymore. She puts her flat, open palm up to her ear and babbles into it, simulating a flat and rectangular smartphone.
It’s so interesting that a lot of seemingly obsolete hand motions still exist, though
very few people wear wristwatches, but tapping one’s wrist is still a nearly universal gesture for “what time is it?” or “hurry up”
I used classic corded phones for only a very brief time in my life (before we got those more rectangular-shaped cordless ones for my parents’ landline) and first saw a car without power windows when I was in college, and yet I’ve always used the pinky-and-thumb gesture for “call me” and the circling-fist gesture for “roll down your window.” I’m 24, so my childhood was the late 90s and early 2000s, but I still use gestures that indicate technology either gone or on its way out when I began forming reliable memories
it also makes me wonder how people indicated time or hurrying before wristwatches. did they somehow pantomime a pocket watch? what gestures have we lost as technology marches on? and since video didn’t exist for most of human history, how might we learn what they were? like the contents of the third Georgian spice jar or the location of Punt, nobody would think to write any of it down
I just love history so much
The ASL sign for phone is based on the pinky-and-thumb gesture. Presumably that will continue on for a while, with future generations seeing it as an arbitrary sign.
And then there are words like “rewind” that no longer make literal sense. Filmmakers still use “cut” long after actual physical film that can be cut fell out of use. We talk about cutting and pasting on computers and use a floppy disc icon for “save”.
Fossilized metaphors are the best.
