«Talk to you later»
The hand mimics the shape of the phone and is closer to the ear.
The gesture which was the phone call was already included in the text of Munari, but represented differently due to the different shape of the telephone. At the time of the first editions the phone was rotary dialing: in fact the hand gesture indicated the ear and the index formed a circular motion as if to compose a phone number.
«Sarcastic clap»
The hands are touching clapping sarcastically. This gesture, in fact, expresses anything but the intent to make compliments to whoever is in front of us.
«My bad!»
The hand goes up instinctively with the palm facing to those whom the apology goes. Much like the gesture “Wait a minute,” represented by Munari, it is actually widely used in traffic to apologize to the driver of the car next to you in case of rudeness or lack of respect of traffic laws.
«Head scratcher»
The hand comes close to the head, a source of problems, and begins to scratch.
The gesture is particularly used to express a moment of discomfort in which you do not find the solution to a problem.
«They have a screw loose»
The hand comes close to the ear and makes circular movements.
The gesture indicates that someone next to us is crazy. The circular movement in fact tries to simulate the wheels of the mechanism of the brain that sometimes jam.
«Scared as shit!»
The tip of the fingers come together and move apart to express a sense of fear. The gesture is in fact made to accuse ironically someone close to us of being afraid.
«Text you later»
The hands come together as if they were approaching a smartphone and the two thumbs move as to simulate writing a message.
It is one of the younger gestures , born together with the latest technologies, this is not always understood by the over 50s.
«Uh, dunno…»
The index points up and twists while the rest of the fingers on the hand is closed into a fist. Generally completed together with a dreamy look and whistling in a falsely relaxed way, the gesture indicates the vain attempt to pretend to be unaware of the situation which just happened.
Supplemento al supplemento al dizionario italiano di Bruno Munari is a project by Elena Fortunati.
