Now What Gesture Should We use to Suggest Rolling Down a Car Window?

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hey, Grant. Hi, Martha. This is Chris Lenning. I’m calling from Plaza, North Dakota. How are you all?

Excellent, Chris. Welcome to the show. What’s up?

Hey, I’ve been thinking about something that I’ve experienced. I live in small-town America, and I work with youth.

And I was thinking about it several years ago. I was trying to connect with some of my youth.

They were driving around town, cruising the loop, as we used to call it when I was a youth.

And I was trying to get their attention and motion for them to come over to me, and I wanted to talk with them.

And so I made a gesture where I kind of took my fist and swung it around several times, which I knew means roll down your window.

But I found out quickly that’s an anachronistic gesture.

So I wanted to ask a little bit about anachronistic gestures.

I know that’s not necessarily your total bailiwick, but it’s a part of communication, and it just fascinates me.

Yeah, they had no idea what I was talking about because you all probably remember rolling down a window.

Yeah.

Yes, we do.

Sure.

Yes.

But they had no idea.

They literally didn’t know.

They just rolled on and didn’t do anything?

They just gave me a strange look and said, what?

They thought it was some obscene gesture you were doing?

Yeah, I think so.

Yeah.

Do you bite your thumb at me, sir?

So if you’re impatient and you’re tapping your wrist with one finger, do they get that?

You know, thanks to, I don’t want to say the brand name, but to our fitness monitors, I think they get that now.

Okay.

But for a while, that was gone.

Yeah, what is a watch?

Who knows?

Right, like maybe you’re asking them their heart rate or something.

Right, right, exactly.

Tapping out voice codes.

Yeah, yeah, because it seems like fewer and fewer people are wearing watches.

But, yeah, I mean, that’s sort of another anachronistic gesture.

Chris, how would you gesture to tell someone to press the button to have the automatic window go down?

Would that even work?

I don’t know.

I talked with those young people, and luckily one of them had grown up on the farm.

And so they had driven their grandpa’s pickup truck with rolled down windows.

And they said, well, could you just kind of pull back as if you’re going to flick a marble?

They knew about marbles, but they didn’t know about rolled down windows.

That was, you know, the flicking motion was the one that they mentioned.

Wait, they flick their windows down?

Yeah.

That little switch that you pull back on or push forward on?

I feel like it’s an index finger motion.

I just press it or pull it, but it doesn’t feel like marble flicking to me.

But, of course, the gesture has to be bigger, more dramatic.

Yeah, that’s right.

That’s the difficulty here, right?

Absolutely.

So did you feel old?

Were you like a dinosaur?

I think I was only like 35 at the time.

So I guess in their eyes, I was certainly at the very least Fred Flintstone age.

Yeah, I’m trying to think of other gestures.

I mean, sort of pointing to your wrist and asking the time is one.

Rolling down the window.

I mean, even the phrase rolling down the window.

I mean, we don’t really roll it anymore.

I mean, you see that more in the language, I think, rather than gestures.

Like turn up the TV.

I mean, when’s the last time you actually turned a knob to turn up the TV?

Absolutely, absolutely.

Yeah, or you talk about a blow-by-blow account of something.

You describe it as the tick-tock.

What are we going to do in this meeting?

What’s the tick-tock?

Terms of jargon.

Yeah, who listens to a clock ticking anymore?

Well, maybe hipsters will help us recover some of these gestures.

That’s true.

One of the ones that stayed around, though, is, you know,

Making the sign, like, surfs up or hang loose and holding it to your ears.

That’s survived even with all the technology and changes in phones.

Well, and another one you see, at least I see people saying,

Text me, and they’re acting it out.

Oh, the two thumbs, yeah.

Yeah, text me your phone number or whatever.

Oh, sure.

Yeah, but that’s a new one.

There’s so much we do on a small screen that that could be about anything.

I know, right?

That’s true.

And pretty soon we’ll be dictating it anyway.

I wonder if people, when they were asking people to call them back in the olden days,

If they held one fist up in front of them and another fist to their ear.

I didn’t know what they did back then.

Yeah, to make the dialing motion.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

Yeah, exactly.

Dialing a phone.

Who does that anymore?

Very few people.

So it’s more preserved in the language than in gestures.

But Chris, thank you so much for these thoughts.

Thank you very much for having me on.

And we really enjoy your show.

My sister is a San Diego transplant.

So what a great opportunity for me to talk with you both.

Thank you, Chris.

Take care now.

Glad to hear from you.

All right, blessings.

Goodbye.

Love you too.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

I didn’t notice our producer making that tornado.

Oh, yeah.

The wrap’s rounded up, right?

The other one is the hand on the neck that means cut it off.

Right, right.

She really does the okay and the thumbs up.

I don’t know why.

I know.

What is that about?

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