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Finger counting gives away your nationality

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Re: Finger counting gives away your nationality

#101

Post by Archelaos »

FabHK wrote: post #77
folli wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This scene is a particular pet peeve of mine (I know it's a movie, but everyone needs something to be picky about...). The character played by Fassbender at one point explains his peculiar accent by being born and raised in a village near Piz Palü (an hommage by Tarantino to "White Hell of Piz Palü" a 1929 silent movie). However, this mountain is located in Switzerland, right by the italian border, far away from Germ…

You could be born in Switzerland to German parents, thus being German (with a funny accent to boot). Germany (at the time) employed jus sanguinis (=your parents matter), not jus soli (=your place of birth matters). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus_sanguinis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus_soli

There had also been quite a few Swiss volunteers that fought in the army and the Waffen-SS.[1]

In the context of the special interest that the film devotes to the subject of language, locating the birthplace of the character near Piz Palü is also a very clever move. It is located in the canton of Graubünden (canton of the Grisons), which is the only trilingual Swiss canton (German, Italian and Romansh).

Another side-note: "White Hell of Piz Palü" is also directly quoted in the film: it is shown in the cinema where the finale takes place. And this again is an hommage to (among others) Leni Riefenstahl, who Tarantino admired very much. She played one of the main roles in "Piz Palü".

[1] https://www.e-periodica.ch/cntmng?pid=sol-003:1994:69::643 (In German)

Re: Finger counting gives away your nationality

#102

Post by underwater »

at_a_remove wrote: post #72
rpmisms wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you had flashed OK hand gesture... thought you were a member of a fringe group? For what it's worth, this hand sign being a hate dogwhistle is pretty much entirely an invention of 4chan.

It is an amazing way to show how paranoid people are over "dogwhistles." Witches are everywhere!

But witches are obviously fictional, whereas white supremists are very real.

Re: Finger counting gives away your nationality

#103

Post by chmod775 »

MengerSponge wrote: post #60
rpmisms wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you had flashed OK hand gesture... thought you were a member of a fringe group? For what it's worth, this hand sign being a hate dogwhistle is pretty much entirely an invention of 4chan.

> invention of 4chan They set out to transform a symbol, and they succeeded. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OK_gesture#White_power_symbol If you think it isn't real because it was made up, Vonnegut's Mother Night has you covered: "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”

They only succeeded if you let them. And if you do I'm going to think less of you for enabling them.

Right now this new 'perception' is pretty limited to a certain US-centric news bubble. Everyone outside that bubble in the US, and generally people everywhere else, are likely to laugh in your face if you tried to convince them the OK gesture is a hate symbol now.

Your average person hasn't even heard of this inane controversy. I for one have to seek out the kind of demographic who thinks that way online - because nowhere else could I even find anyone.

Re: Finger counting gives away your nationality

#105

Post by callmeal »

Talanes wrote: post #35

Every time I've heard some variation of this, the example is always three. I'm more interested in four. Does the pattern follow through? Because I physically can't hold up 3 fingers and my thumb without the pinky going up to, when I do 3, my thumb is holding my pinky down.

>Because I physically can't hold up 3 fingers and my thumb without the pinky going up to, when I do 3, my thumb is holding my pinky down.

laughs in piano I think I can move multiple fingers independently and concurrently thanks to a lot of piano drills!

Re: Finger counting gives away your nationality

#106

Post by Archelaos »

dylan604 wrote: post #40
jhellan wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am guilty of having taught that to a five year old during a hiking trip. He is now an engineer.

I taught a 5 year old that 1 + 1 = 10, and they got in trouble at school for arguing with the teacher. Even after explaining that 1 + 1 = 10 in binary specifically, as the teacher was complaining to the parents "whatever that means". The parents asked me to be more careful with my "teaching".

I was taught binary math in elementary school in the mid 70s. The problem was that they had to teach it to the parents too, unless the parents were not able to help their children with homework.

Re: Finger counting gives away your nationality

#107

Post by jychang »

dylan604 wrote: post #51
moralestapia wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Err... sorry I don't know said teacher, I was just following along your comment, where you seem to portray the teacher in such way. You even do it in this comment, condescendingly, >I would not expect a kindergarten teacher to be [...] fully educated in other counting methods than base 10 Honestly, it's not that big of a deal to know binary or not. But anyway, that aside, you completely missed the point of my comment…

Are you saying that my not expecting a kindergarten teacher to be educated in binary math is condescending? I got your point that 10 in binary is not actually base 10 10, but 2 in base 10. It was just not worth commenting as it was a discussion about a 5 year old conversation not the semantics of math.

I mean, I'd want my kindergarten teacher to be focused teaching kindergarteners. I don't want them to be an expert on calculus, just be the best teacher for a kindergartener. Same thing as "i want my IDE to focus on being an IDE, and not add facebook integration".

I feel like making sure the absolute fundamentals are well ingrained in your kid is way more important than trying to teach them binary.

Important stuff like learning the alphabet. How to read simple books. Things like that.

Re: Finger counting gives away your nationality

#108

Post by rpmisms »

anigbrowl wrote: post #82
rpmisms wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People want to have something to fear or wave pitchforks at. It's simple mob psychology, and it's scary.

Perhaps you'd care to explain why this guy has it emblazoned on his helmet. As I have pointed out many times, simply ignoring people whose ideas you find disagreeable doesn't necessarily make them go away. https://theintercept.imgix.net/wp-uploads/sites/1/2021/08/08...

For the same reason people like him fly the Army of Northern Virginia Battle Flag (which was carried into battle against the Nazis). It makes people like you upset, which is hilarious to them.

Re: Finger counting gives away your nationality

#109

Post by bombela »

Leherenn wrote: post #76
dylan604 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's interesting. How can one differentiate the two then? Does the wrist position matter? A thumb out with the wrist twisted so the thumb is at an angle indicates "1", but a forward thrusted wrist so the thumb is pointing up and towards the person mean "yes, good job"? Is the second meaning lost entirely to the barman? If you had flashed OK hand gesture, would the barman have poured 3 pints, or thought you were a m…

It's going to depend based on context. In this case, context was unclear and a misunderstanding ensued. I have nothing to back this up except experience, but I think the thumb up is less common is Europe than in the US. In this specific case, I think the expected answer is to confirm the number by flashing the same sign. A nod would also work, but be potentially less clear/easier to be missed. The ok gesture would li…

The ok sign usually means zero in France.

In this situation; as a Frenchy; I would have repeated the count to confirm while nodding. Or waved my hand while shaking my head to refuse.

Re: Finger counting gives away your nationality

#110

Post by rzzzt »

In , the countdown for launching rally cars is different from the regular order: 5 - all fingers extended, 4 - thumb bent, 3 - pinky bent, 2 - ring finger retracts, 1 - middle finger bent, 0 - index finger points toward road to signal "go".
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