Topic: The right way to sign something depends.
[By William G. Vicars, EdD, 3/20/2026]
An ASL teacher writes:
Good morning Bill,
My name is ███████. I teach ASL in █████. I have emailed you a couple of
times before. Currently, I am doing a "Daily Life" unit with my 3 / 4 combo
class (things they want to learn before some graduate). We have a couple of
terms that I don't know the signs for and I was wondering what you use? The
first is "Taco Bell". My CODA and I sign it differently; my friend who
teaches at another school said she fingerspells it. The next term is
"Microbiology" for college class. The third term is "Fashion Design" also a
college class.
Thanks,███████
Response from Bill:
Hello ██████!I recognize your name from previous conversations and I
appreciate the brief recap that you teach ASL in █████ -- which helps me to
have context.
The "right" way to sign anything is relative.
Relative to what?
The social and contextual landscape. The circumstances and resources in
which we are communicating.
We don't just use language to "say things" or "sign things." We use language
to navigate within our circumstances to get closer to our goal or achieve
some function.
We are constantly calculating the minimum amount of effort required to
achieve the maximum desired outcome without breaking social norms.
In other words, the right way to sign something depends. It depends on a
lot.
A lot of what?
A lot of situations and the influences and resources that come with those
situations.
There are virtually an unlimited number of situations in which humans need
to use language.
The fact that the right way to sign something depends on the situation means
that there are a whole heck of a lot of right ways to sign something (and an
infinite number of unsatisfying ways to sign something).
Thus the best we can do is put time and effort into learning as many
different ways to sign something and learning how to recognize situations
and choose from our language toolbox which tools (words, signs, sentence
structures, etc.) to apply to any one situation.
The best way to sign:
Taco Bell
Microbiology
Fashion Design
and other concepts that are on the outskirts of the bell curve of language
usage are going to depend on
to whom we are signing,
where we are signing,
how much we have discussed those topics previously,
how much we have discussed those topics recently,
how much our conversation partner knows about those topics,
how important it is to be unambiguous (clear),
how important it is to be specific,
how important it is for our conversation partner to be able to reproduce our
message with high fidelity (exactness with which something is copied or
reproduced)
and a long list of other influences.
Thus for me to tell you how best to sign any one concept would require a
very long time in order to discuss a long list of many different situations.
For example, if we are standing between a McDonalds and a Taco Bell with the
communicative goal of deciding where to eat -- the right way to sign Taco
Bell might very well be to point at the Taco Bell restaurant building that
is in our immediate environment. Any other approach to signing Taco Bell in
that environment would take more effort and be less clear than simply
pointing (unless one of the conversation participants is blind -- and I'm
not joking).
Thus it takes a bit of ignorance or unfounded hubris to in a matter of fact
way state out of context that the sign for [anything] is [anything].
Yet all of us ASL teachers (or at least all of the ASL teachers I have
observed) do exactly that rather often.
Why?
Because it is expedient (fast / easy / relatively efficient).
Yes, many of us also try to expand a bit on versions and variations of
signs. Yet it is always a tradeoff. For every variation we teach of one
vocabulary item we have used up time and attention that we could have taught
the most common variation of some other vocabulary item.
It is taking me a considerable amount of time to share these ideas so far
and I've only managed to share "one" way to sign Taco Bell in "one"
situation (point at an existing Taco Bell building in the immediate
environment when conversing with a sighted person).
For the sake of expediency, sure, I'll list some ways to sign those things
but even then there are nuances. If I tell you that a primary way to sign
Taco Bell is to spell it -- that doesn't delve into the fact that some
people do the "A" with a slightly open thumb due to the influence of the "C"
and that many people (but not all) use a fairly open transitional E on their
way to the LLs (but some use a more closed "E") and that most people use a
sliding movement for the LLs with a nearly imperceptible arch in the slide
and others use more of a full reduplication of the "L" -- and many people
just prior to spelling the LL will move their hand slightly to the center
(without realizing they are even doing it) which allows the hand to stay in
the same general fingerspelling window.
Taco Bell
1. Spell it (vast majority)
2. Sign TB (being careful to keep it upright and in the same location so as
to not look like "too bad") (Use in high context).
3. Sign TACO using a one-movement approach to the FLAT-hand version of TACO
and transition into a quick spelling of BELL. (TACO+fsBELL)
4. Sign TACO using one of the taco signs (such as the non-dominant palm-up C
hand being filled by the dominant flat hand using a slight double movement
of the dominant hand) followed by one of the signs for BELL such as using a
depictive palm-down CLAW hand). (Done by a variety of signers but more-so by
those who are not skilled at fingerspelling).
Note: Any of the above concepts may have additional mouth movement depicting
what the mouth would look like if the person said the words "taco bell."
--------------
Microbiology:
1. Spell "micro" then sign "BIOLOGY" using the common "B"-hands doing the
"CHEMISTRY" location and movement path.
2. Spell out microbiology (rare to expend the energy to spell out biology
because the sign BIOLOGY is very common).
3. Spell MB (high context, very frequent usage within the same discussion,
after having previously introduced the concept).
__________
Fashion Design:
1. Sign "CLOTHING" (using the two-handed alternating hands movement)
followed by the DESIGN sign that consists of an initialized version of
"ART." (This is by far the most common approach by signers "in the know").
Some people may choose to de-initialize DESIGN but really that just muddies
the water.
2. Do a version of FASHION that thrusts both "F" hands forward and down then
arcs up and shifts a few inches to the side and down again (signing tip:
imagine doing an "F" initialized version of the "take it easy" sign but do
the movement with more flair), then sign DESIGN.
3. Do a version of the MODEL-(modeling) sign (using the "F"-hand near the
shoulder version) followed by the the DESIGN sign that consists of an
initialized version of "ART."
4. Sign FANCY then DESIGN.
Note that the vast majority of skilled, native-level signers who are
familiar with or often discuss "fashion" tend to do the two-handed
alternating hands version of CLOTHING to mean "fashion."
Warm regards,
+ Bill
Just yesterday I was kidding around with one of my interns and (jokingly)
pointed out that since (so called) ASL grammar puts "time" first (in
sentence structure) the proper (ha) way of signing "See you later!" is to
sign "LATER, YOU, I SEE!" -- which of course is hilariously bad and not
signed by anyone who knows anything about real-life ASL usage -- but is the
type of signing that newbies sometimes end up doing when they adhere to
prescriptions about what ASL influencers claim is ASL grammar. The same
amusing result happens when one suggests that due to the rightward movement
of WH-type questions we should be signing YOU HOW? (instead of HOW YOU? (How
are you?)