Hello I'm Daven Hiskey, you're watching the Today I Found Out youtube channel, in the
video today, we're looking at the origin of the thumbs up gesture and whether it really
had anything to do with Roman Gladiators.
There are few hand gestures out there as well known or ubiquitous as the humble thumbs up.
But why is this seemingly innocuous gesture so widespread; how did it come to mean "everything
is okay" in so many cultures and where did it come from?
The commonly told origin is that it came from the Romans and their gladiatorial games: thumbs
up meant live and thumbs down meant die.
This is unequivocally false.
While it is true that in the days of gladiatorial combat in the Colosseum and the earlier (and
significantly larger) Circus Maximus, the audience could decide the fate of a fallen
gladiator with a simple hand gesture, this isn't typically depicted accurately and
has little to do with why thumbs up and thumbs down means what it does today.
The fate of a gladiator, in terms of whether the audience was voting for a kill, was decided
with what is known as "pollice verso", a Latin term which roughly translates to "turned
thumb".
More precisely what this means isn't known and there are no accounts that have survived
to this day that describe it in any real detail.
As such, we're unable to say for sure which way the thumb was supposed to be pointed if
the audience wanted a given gladiator to be killed or if they could just wave their thumbs
around at random, which it seems may well have been the case.
So that's voting for death, what about life?
The gesture to spare a given gladiator's life seems to have been neither a thumbs up
nor a thumbs down.
Instead, you had to hide your thumb inside your fist, forming a gesture known as pollice
compresso, "compressed thumb".
The reasons for this has been speculated to be twofold: first, it made the decision of
the crowd easier to discern, since it's easier to tell the difference between a thumbs
turned and a closed fist than a thumbs up and a thumbs down from a long ways away.
And two, the gestures themselves are thought to be largely symbolic of what they represented-
a pointed thumb represented the audience's desire for the victorious gladiator to deliver
his coup de grâce (stab the fallen foe), while a hidden thumb symbolised that they
wished for the gladiator to stay his blade, sheathing it much in the way they'd hidden
their thumbs.
Hence why it's thought "turned thumb" may well have been simply waving your thumb
around in the air, perhaps in a stabbing motion.
However, this fact is largely absent from pop culture representations, most notably
in the otherwise enjoyable 2000 movie, Gladiator, in which Joaquin Phoenix is shown giving a
defeated gladiator a thumbs down to signify that he wishes for him to be killed.
According to director Ridley Scott, that scene was inspired by a painting from 1872 called
"Pollice Verso".
The painting depicts a victorious gladiator standing over the lifeless body of his opponent
while a baying crowd jeers and delivers a tsunami of down-turned thumbs.
Scott stated of the painting, "That image spoke to me of the Roman Empire in all its
glory and wickedness.
I knew right then and there I was hooked."
That particular painting has been noted by historians as the catalyst for why the concept
of pollice verso is so poorly understood today by the masses.
What makes this fact so surprising is that the painter behind the piece, Jean-Léon Gérôme,
was a hugely respected historical artist who was internationally renowned for his "archaeologically
correct history paintings".
Gérôme has been described as a "learned classicist" and was famous for extensively
researching his pieces before putting brush to canvas.
For example, with "Pollice Verso" Gérôme studied actual pieces of armor from the ruins
of Pompeii so that the gladiators in his paintings looked authentic.
Gérôme's legendary attention to detail is probably the reason that his interpretation
of pollice verso was so widely accepted by academics and why it was so widely disseminated,
even after it was proven false.
As for what historians of his era thought, interpretations varied greatly from thumbs
up meaning kill and thumbs down meaning live (and vice versa), to hidden thumb in fist
meaning live and thumbs down meaning kill, and pretty much every variation therein.
Why Gérôme chose thumbs down isn't known, or even whether he meant it as is often interpreted-
"kill".
People predominantly interpreted the painting this way (and still do), but in truth there
is no evidence that this was what Gérôme was going for.
So, if the Romans aren't generally thought today to be the origin of the thumbs up gesture,
who was?
That isn't known precisely and we're left mostly with just guesses.
But it might surprise you that the mass-popularity of thumbs up / thumbs down, meaning as it
does today, is a fairly recent phenomenon, though gesturing with one's thumb is prevalent
in many cultures throughout much of history with varied meanings.
So what about some educated guesses as to the origin of the thumb gestures?
If you ask linguist anthropologist Joel Sherzer of the University of Texas, the gesture (meaning
something) likely pre-dates the Romans.
He went on to say of Europeans, "The dichotomy of up meaning 'positive' and down meaning
'negative' pervades the language and gesture systems of Europe…
The thumbs-up gesture probably originates from this contrast."
We can see evidence of this gesture in such images as the 1617 painting by Spanish artist
Diego Velázquez titled, The Lunch, though what the gesture meant precisely in this case
is open to interpretation.
As for a speculative theory that is a little more concrete, one of the more convincing
theories of the origin of the modern meaning of thumbs up comes from Desmond Morris'
1979 work, Gestures: Their Origins and Distribution.
He states that it derives from a custom prevalent in medieval times where people making a deal
would lick their thumbs and press them up against one another, rather like shaking hands
today.
It's theorised that over time this diluted to the act of simply sticking one's non-licked
thumb into the air to symbolise approval.
Whatever the case, at the least, we do know how the meaning was so widely popularised.
For this one, we need to fast-forward to much more recently in history- WWII.
During WWII, the thumbs up gesture was used extensively by American pilots as a shorthand
way of indicating to their ground crews that they were ready to fly.
It has been speculated that they got this from the Chinese, with specifically the Flying
Tiger brigade of American pilots based in China seemingly being the first (or among
the first) to popularly use the gesture, at least as far as photographic evidence from
the era seems to indicate.
To the Chinese at this time, the thumbs up gesture meant "number one" or "nice
job" depending on context.
(Why this is the case is up for debate.)
Whether it truly was adopted from the Chinese or some other source, the American pilot version
initially meant "I'm ready" or "good to go".
From here, things become much more clear.
This "ready" meaning soon evolved into a simple, all-encompassing way to indicate
that everything was okay in situations where verbal cues weren't possible or advisable.
It was also picked up by the rest of the American military who proceeded to make extensive use
of the gesture during their many campaigns across Europe; in the process, it was picked
up by the locals and soldiers from other militaries.
From there, the thumbs up symbol temporarily declined somewhat in popularity by the 1960s,
but made a huge comeback thanks to Hollywood, and particularly Fonzie and his two thumbs
up "aaaaaaaaay" gesture in Happy Days which debuted in 1974.
Today, thanks to the widespread use of thumbs up meaning "like" or "good" and thumbs
down meaning the opposite on numerous popular websites and apps, this meaning of the hand
gesture is likely not going anywhere for the foreseeable future.
Bonus Fact:
As we alluded to previously, there are several places on Earth where a thumbs up is considered
a grave insult.
For example, in places like Iraq and Greece, sticking up your thumb is akin to saying "shove
it up your a**".
It also meant this in Australia before WWII, but afterward switched to the modern meaning
thanks to the dissemination of the gesture throughout the Allied military.
The exact reasoning behind this meaning, as with many gestures, isn't clear, but it's
believed to be representative of the action that would be required for you to act out
the insult itself.
In fact, in some of these cultures that interpret it this way, an up and down movement often
accompanies the gesture to make the meaning perfectly clear.
On that note, when American troops first started being stationed in Iraq, some reported being
greeted by civilians offering a thumbs up, with the soldiers (and many in the media)
interpreting it as most Westerners would, all the while not realising the obscene connotations
it has in that country.
So I hoped you enjoyed this video, if you did please do give it a like below and consider
sharing it with anyone you think might also enjoy it.
It really helps us out a lot.
And if you're at all interested in supporting our efforts monetarily check out our patreon
page linked below.
We've got some good perks there, including Simon's voice on your GPS, monthly giveaways,
and perhaps the most requested thing on this channel- a video of Simon Whistler whistling.
Thanks for watching.
For more infomation >> Peugeot 308 Active 1.2 PureTech 110 PK S&S |NETTODEAL| - Duration: 0:44. 
For more infomation >> Mercedes-Benz A-Klasse 200 AMBITION Urban / Xenon / Navigatie / 18" Velgen / Parkeersensoren V+A / K - Duration: 1:02. 
No comments:
Post a Comment