Truce Term - Gestures

Gestures

The Opies found that in England and Wales children usually held up crossed fingers. Sometimes crossing the fingers of both hands was required and occasionally the feet as well. The Opies found one area, Headington, where sitting cross-legged was required. At Lydney, a children could raise their right hand palm forward, whilst in Bradford-on-Avon the hand was held up with three fingers extended. In some parts of Scotland the custom was to put up one's thumbs, sometimes licking them first. This also occurred in a few places in Lancashire. Anecdotally, the raising of a thumb may also accompany the use of pouce in France.

The 1988 Croydon study found a variety of gestures in common use. These were crossed fingers of one hand (44%), crossed fingers of both hands (26%), thumbs through fingers (6%) (boys only) and arms crossed across the chest (2%). Other gestures, reported in ones and twos, included miming an injection into the arm, licking the thumb, making a T-shape with the hands, three fingers held up and the "Vulcan" sign from Star Trek. Virtually all schools reported the use of crossed fingers.

The holding up of one hand with middle and index fingers crossed was the usual gesture found in New Zealand in 1999–2001. The T-shape was also used when saying time-out. The time-out gesture is made with two hands - one hand held horizontally, palm down, the other hand vertically with the fingertips touching the bottom of the horizontal hand. In the US, although the more modern time-out has largely supplanted traditional terms, often accompanied by the time-out gesture, the crossed fingers gesture remains common.