There are definitely some funny moments when you're dealing with deaf culture. The ASL influence on the culture is that people are very, very blunt and it's always a good time when you're watching someone new to the culture experience that. And by blunt, I mean about everything. There's just no...prevarication...in ASL. There isn't any way to circumlocute your way around saying, "Yes, that dress makes you look fat." (Ahem. I'd like points for prevarication and circumlocute, please. Two words you'll never see in ASL, by the way). Anyway, there's no polite way for saying stuff. You just tell it like it is. "You look fat in that dress." It's not intended to be rude or hurtful. It's the nature of the language. You can kind of only say exactly what you mean.
But there are other odd little things, too. I don't remember if I blogged about this before, and if I wasn't an utterly lazy woman I'd click on my archives and figure it out, but I grew up doing a lot of things that I thought were normal that it turns out...not so much. For example, I didn't realize that everybody doesn't flick the lights or bang on tables to get people's attention. And it used to be that if I wanted people to move out of my way, I just put my hands on them and moved them. My husband says I still do this sometimes but I don't believe him.
There are odd turns of phrase I picked up, too. I called my sister a few months ago after a conversation with my husband and said, "When you need to buy food, where do you go?"
"The food store."
"Ha! That's what I said, too. Did you know no one else goes to the food store? They say they're going to the grocery store."
"What?"
"I know! We've been ASL'd!"
The idea that other people don't call it "the food store" surprised my brother, too.
And we keep our eyes open during prayers too, because we're used to seeing them signed. That still discomfits my husband. (Points for discomfit, please.) And on the subject of all things holy, sacrament meeting in a deaf ward/branch is the LOUDEST CHURCH AROUND. Parents have no idea if their kids are being noisy or not so there's no shushing. One time I was sitting in sacrament meeting and I kept hearing this periodic, ethereal singing. I couldn't for the life of me figure it out. There would just be this kind of angelic, wordless "Aah ah ahhhh..." series of song notes. I tried to figure out if there was some correlation to whatever the speaker was saying, but no....just these random spurts of singing. Finally, I realized what was going on. A little girl had an Ariel Little Mermaid doll and every time she pressed it, Ariel sang. You know that part where Ursula is capturing her voice in a seashell necklace? And Ariel sings, "Aaah ah ah, ah ah aaah!" I felt better that I wasn't hearing imaginary voices.
One of my favorite things is deaf applause. Do you know how deaf people clap? They stick their hands in the air and flutter their fingers so you can SEE how they feel, since hearing is moot. It's pretty cool.
In fact, I'm fluttering my fingers at you right now...
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