While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is
here. So we thought we'd share a few of our gardening sites appropriate
for this time of the year. Along with gardening, there's grilling, and getting
ready to diet so that you can fit back into that bathing suit this summer!
Persons of limited vocabulary, whether
foreigners to the tongue employed or native, but not
accomplished in its use, even in the midst of a civilization
where gestures are deprecated, when at fault for words
resort instinctively to physical motions that are not wild
nor meaningless, but picturesque and significant, though
perhaps made by the gesturer for the first time. An
uneducated laborer, if good-natured enough to be really
desirous of responding to a request for information, when he
has exhausted his scanty stock of words will eke them out by
original gestures. While fully admitting the advice to
Coriolanus—
Action is eloquence,
and the eyes of the ignorant
More learned than the ears—
it may be paraphrased to read that the hands of the ignorant
are more learned than their tongues. A stammerer, too, works
his arms and features as if determined to get his thoughts
out, in a manner not only suggestive of the physical
struggle, but of the use of gestures as a hereditary
expedient.
This site includes some historical
materials that may imply negative stereotypes reflecting the culture or
language of a particular period or place. These items are presented as
part of the historical record and should not be interpreted to mean that
the WebMasters in any way endorse the stereotypes implied.
Sign Language
Among North American Indians Compared with
that Among Other Peoples and Deaf-Mutes,
1881
