Re: "Thumbs-up" symbol

At 3:29 PM +0200 98.8.31, Pascale Dardailler wrote:
>I think that in Japan this gesture means 5.And I'm pretty sure that you
>could find countries where it's an insult.

A pedantic point. When counting on the hands in Japan, 1 is the thumb only
extended (i.e. the "thumbs up" position, although the thumb does not have to
be vertical) and 5 is all fingers extended. Anyway, the thumbs up and thumbs
down signs are commonly understood here and have the same meaning as in the
West.

Best wishes,

Jonathan Lewis
Institute of Social Science
University of Tokyo

Received on Monday, 31 August 1998 19:28:54 UTC