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Apple (advanced discussion)
Question:
Is it possible for a person to reasonably claim to know every version of the sign APPLE?
Response:
Playing with this a bit: I'm familiar with various cheek-based / chin based versions: knuckle, version, X version, A version. I suppose we could include depictive versions wherein the apple is being manipulated: thrown, bitten into, shown as heavy. We could add any of the connotative or affective versions: "ewww" or "yum" facial expressions while signing apple. Then we could add the fingerspelled versions for the Apple corporation and expand that to lexicalized / coarticulation influenced fingerspelled versions. If we push it I suppose we could include absent or present referent versions of signing apple (in context after establishing the topic). Or the understood/assumed version of dropping the sign when previously identified and currently non-pertinent. We could include drunk signing, old signing, and extremely low-effort signing wherein the sign apple might be done far from the face. I might go so far as to include the signing done by people who have mis-learned apple and do it by twisting the tip of their finger on their cheek (instead of the knuckle). Yet really are we still even talking about "the sign" any more or are we talking about pronunciation (articulation) now? Oh sure, someone could go find the international sign for "apple" (perhaps the one that looks like taking a bite out of an apple with either a C, a claw, or maybe a baby-C handshape) but that is breaking the rules eh? We are talking about "every version" of the ASL sign for "apple" not every version in every language. Oh, oh... just remembered... the versions like "Adams apple" in the throat -- and idiomatic versions like "she is the apple of my eye," or "the big apple" (New York) -- but just because I didn't list such versions earlier doesn't mean I don't know them. Also we are entering questionable territory by going diglossic and/or bilingual crossover examples when the question is about knowing every version of an ASL sign.
Anyway.... so I gave that my best shot off the top of my head on ASL "APPLE" versions.
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Now I'm going to go look in my "oldest" ASL dictionaries and/or invite the folks to share with me their "legit" (not just one-off, half-remembered, undocumented) ASL (not BSL, not international sign) versions of "apple."
Notes:
Also see: APPLE
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