Sign Language Moments

One of my friends told me a story that happened to her when she first started learning ASL. She was at a Deaf social of some kind and immediately struck up a conversation with a Deaf man. She thought the gathering started at 7:00, so she was going to get there at 6:30, but as it turned out, it actually started at 6:30 so she was right on time. Instead of telling her new friend that she had intended to arrive early, somehow she told him she had intended to arrive naked.

About a year ago, I was at a Deaf social and someone asked me if I had a boyfriend. I was single at the time, but instead of telling them that, I accidentally said, "Oh, no, I'm gay!"
 
Good thread to read and it made me laugh. Thanks!

A hearing guy was learning ASL in my class years ago. He explained to us that he joined a choir at his church that's including sign languages. He said to some deaf church goers and the pastor (CODA) that " me prostitute". They laughed real hard. It took a while for them to calm down and explained to him that the sign only need to do once and slow, not repeats quickly. He was trying to say "me shy"! Boy did he get very embrassed and had really red face for a long time. haha

Also another story, many years ago my ex was learning sign languages at the time. We went to TTY Banquet where we had thousand deaf people there. At far distance, he asked my girlfriend what drink would she like. She told him "milk". He didn't get it. Finally she put that sign over her breast area. Oh he finally got it. haha
 
As an ASL student, I always wanted everyone to know how eager I was to learn. I would leave class, then study all week... checking out LifePrint and other sites... trying to learn more on my own.

So, I'm all ready with my new phrase to share with everyone at the end of class. When the instructor waved us goodbye, I signed: "See you next toilet!" :o
 
Hahaha, so you said "toilet" instead of "Tuesday", eh?
 
Got this story from a friend who is hearing and worked as a barber. He met two young deaf boys who went to him for haircuts. He want to learn ASL so he tried to learn it from the boys. The mischievous boys had decided to substitute regular signs for dirty signs. The mother found it out when she watch the boys' converstation in the rear view mirror and reported it to my friend. Of course, he was very embarrassed by this. He still want to learn ASL so he signed up for ASL classes at my alma mater. He told me that the first classes he took, he didn't attempted any sign language out of fear of signing something dirty! I gotta admire him for wanting to learn sign language in spite of that.
 
deafdyke said:
Not exactly an ASL moment, but one time I was hanging out with my friends at a get together in Ely (student building) My friend JT started making a frantic up and down motion on his chest. I looked at him, and asked "Why are you saying you're horny?" Turns out he'd been trying to draw my attention to the fact that my fly was down LOL.
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Your comment reminds me of a story my friend was telling me about her husband. She works at Sterk's (Delaware School for the Deaf) and her and her husband were out at a resturant when she ran into some of her friends from work who were deaf (she's hearing and so is her husband). Well she started talking and from across the resturant her husband started signing that he was "REALLY HUNGRY" only he was infact signing that he was "HORNEY". Talk about embarrassing when your in public.
 
shel90 said:
All of your moments made me laugh. Here is one I just remembered


My friend who lives in PA came down for my baby shower 2 years ago. She was asking people for the cake but I guess the sign for cake in PA is different from what Marylanders use. My friend was going around asking people "Where is the cake." Everyone was like "Where is who? What are u talking about??" My friend was like "no, where is the cake?" When I saw her asking that, I was like :eek3: "Who is a whore here?" She was like what?! She had been putting her hand on the side of her face with the fingers facing her cheek and extending them out. She said that is the PA's way of signing cake and I said that is the MD's way of signing whore. No wonder all of my friends looked at her funny. She was so embarassed and now we call her the "cake" girl whenever she comes to MD for a visit. After two years, we still wont let her live it down. :giggle:
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Where at in PA is your friend from??? I am from PA (close to DE border) and we don't sign "cake" that way. One of my co-workers kept trying to sign "warm" and instead kept signing "whore". He couldn't quite grasp what he was doing incorrectly.

A co-worker of mine was learning some signs, she only knew a few of the "inappropriate" signs. Well we had a patient who was a CODA, she was hearing, and during one of her visits my co-worker proudly announced that she knew some signs and signed "purple" (correctly) and "pink" (incorrectly - she instead signed "penis") Thank God our patient was hearing and knew it was a mistake and wasn't offended.

Needless to say, both of my co-worker were prohibited from making any signing gestures from then on.
 
2lilprincesses said:
Where at in PA is your friend from??? I am from PA (close to DE border) and we don't sign "cake" that way. One of my co-workers kept trying to sign "warm" and instead kept signing "whore". He couldn't quite grasp what he was doing incorrectly.

A co-worker of mine was learning some signs, she only knew a few of the "inappropriate" signs. Well we had a patient who was a CODA, she was hearing, and during one of her visits my co-worker proudly announced that she knew some signs and signed "purple" (correctly) and "pink" (incorrectly - she instead signed "penis") Thank God our patient was hearing and knew it was a mistake and wasn't offended.

Needless to say, both of my co-worker were prohibited from making any signing gestures from then on.
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Purple penis might come in handy if you have Barney as a patient!:giggle:
 
shel90 said:
Jillo, I'll bet the feeling you had that moment was probably one of the best feelings u have ever had as a mom!

I was teaching my students and showing them the difference between the ASL version and the SEE version of dinner. When I signed the SEE version of dinner, my hand was in the "d" shape and instead of placing it on my chin, I placed it on my nose and I kept doing that until my aide gave me this :eek3: look. I was like "What's wrong?" She said I had been signing "dick" not "dinner".


OOOPSS!!! I told my kids, wrong placement and corrected myself. I dont think they realized it. I was mortified!!!
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That is really funny, I love it!!!! :rofl:
 
You know how closely the "thank you" and "f*&# off" look like? Well, this guy was attempting to say thank you to me but ended up swearing at me. I laughed at him for this. He was mortified and that was the last time he attempted at sign language. Awww, darn!
 
when i first started taking asl, my instructor had us get up and tell a story in sign. so i got up and told about this time that my pastor had asked me to go get some coffee from his office. instead of signing coffee i signed make-out. so here i am in front of my entire sign class telling them my pastor asked me to make-out with him in his office. so i got the sign name coffee initialized with p's. which later a few of my deaf friends were nice enough to change to interpreter initialized with p's.
 
Well my isn't exact ASL moment but lack of direction.

I was chatting with one of interpreters after the class's over. At that time, I was using left hand as "dominant hand" for that conversation. There was one word I did not know the sign and I tried to remember how to spell that word. So I mumbled to myself with my right hand fingerspelled really close to my hip trying to remember how to spell that word. Sort of like hiding it before reveal it, just like how hearing people would mumble to themselves to make sure before starting to talk. Of course, my interpreters looked at that direction where I fingerspelled to myself. Suddenly, I remember how to spell that word and went back to left hand to spell that word. My interpreters quickly had to look at left hand, which is in the air the whole time.
She teased me saying I made them look everywhere to follow the conversation. First left hand then right hand below the chest then left hand again.

One of interpreter I had loved to tease about my signing, lol especially because I am cross domination and sometimes use ASL. I am laid back so I am always amused by her.

I think people love to criticize my signing. Lol.

I remember one deaf person I was chatting with one time. She is ASL teacher. I signed "truck" in SEE way (old habit is hard to break) and she would fingerspell "truck" each time I signed "truck."
I would think, "Huh, what's wrong with her? Why is she repeating that word each time I sign it?"
It's like I could not tell the story with ease because I was distracted by her doing that. I would nod each time she fingerspelled that word.

Later on I realized that she is trying to tell me that I did not sign it correctly. Clearly, I did not catch on her somewhere hidden message, lol. I told her about it later and she went like, "Oops." lol

I must be very confused person, lol.
 
Back in high school, a hearing boy was crushing BIG time on a deaf classmate. He came to me in private and told me he reallyreallyreally liked that girl and wanted to know how to sign "Hi how are you?" so he could meet her. With a straight face I taught him "Hi, let's get naked".

At lunch time he finally worked up the courage to approach her and started signing what I taught him(perfectly I might add!).... She was SO shocked and offended she actually hit on the shoulder! Poor guy was so surprised and confused.....

They got married after she graduated. I was best man at their wedding.....

p.s. last I heard, they have 6 kids.. Guess those signs did the trick after all!
 
When I was in high school, I was asked to say a prayer for the traditional Thanksgiving breakfast at our deaf school. I was nervous about getting in front of so many people so I signed the prayer quickly (which didn't make it easy for the interpreter to voice for me), ending it with "Lord, please bless this food...Amen." In the far right side of the room was the group of cafetaria workers. I could see that their facial expressions were that of shock and dismay. One woman's mouth was dropped. The principal's facial expression= angry. Very. She pulled me aside and asked me if I was trying to be "cute," and said that it wasn't very nice of me to do what I did. When she saw I was confused- she realized I didn't mean to say "Lord, please bury the food. Help." :Oops:
 
cathartes said:
Back in high school, a hearing boy was crushing BIG time on a deaf classmate. He came to me in private and told me he reallyreallyreally liked that girl and wanted to know how to sign "Hi how are you?" so he could meet her. With a straight face I taught him "Hi, let's get naked".

At lunch time he finally worked up the courage to approach her and started signing what I taught him(perfectly I might add!).... She was SO shocked and offended she actually hit on the shoulder! Poor guy was so surprised and confused.....

They got married after she graduated. I was best man at their wedding.....

p.s. last I heard, they have 6 kids.. Guess those signs did the trick after all!
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That's a great story!
 
deafbajagal said:
When I was in high school, I was asked to say a prayer for the traditional Thanksgiving breakfast at our deaf school. I was nervous about getting in front of so many people so I signed the prayer quickly (which didn't make it easy for the interpreter to voice for me), ending it with "Lord, please bless this food...Amen." In the far right side of the room was the group of cafetaria workers. I could see that their facial expressions were that of shock and dismay. One woman's mouth was dropped. The principal's facial expression= angry. Very. She pulled me aside and asked me if I was trying to be "cute," and said that it wasn't very nice of me to do what I did. When she saw I was confused- she realized I didn't mean to say "Lord, please bury the food. Help." :Oops:
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LOL!
 
One of our class assignments when I took ASL 20 years
ago in Alaska, was to go attend a Deaf softball game.
I enjoyed the game and chatted with a few people.
One Deaf woman that I hit it off with asked me I
would give her a ride across town. I said sure,
and at first she wanted to have a conversation
with me and tried to sign to me while I was
driving. I kept turning my head all the way to
look at her hands and my car would go the same
direction! She finally just signed that we should
wait until we got there to chat because I was
scaring her very much!
 
When I moved to USA from Russia, and I went to deaf school. One student hit my shoulder, and said "sorry" in ASL. I told her, no, no, she was puzzled, because I misunderstand due to ASL sign for "SORRY" have same sign language for ZLOI (VERY MAD) in Russian Sign Language. I never know the ASL sign for sorry. Now, I thought she said VERY MAD VERY MAD... I was like no no then later I asked my friend what is that ASL sign for "SORRY" and explained to me about it. I got it, and explained to that girl about the difference between RSL and ASL meaning, but same sign.. She think it's cool. :ugh3:
 
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