to show victory (V) sign: 比ya
The verb is bi3 (比), which means to gesture with the hand. That which is gestured is ya (or yeah), which is a declaration of how happy one is or how unbelievably cool the picture will be. The "yeah!" should be exclaimed as if you were an excited but quiet ten-year-old who just learned that he won an award for coolness. It is possible to make a V with your fingers without saying "yeah," but it is not recommended. What do you mean "it's too hard"? Come on, even a baby can do it. Look, the baby is shaming you with his effortless mastery of the victory sign.
Interestingly, the Taiwanese students I've discussed this with say that the letter is a "Y" rather than a "V"--I guess they consider the forearm a part of the letter?
ReplyDeleteAnd my wife tells me that this trend probably came from Japan (which is not surprising, I guess).
That's interesting, I hadn't heard that, about it being a Y. It's reasonable that this probably came from Japan, but I've never heard Japanese people make the "yeah" sound to go with it.
ReplyDeleteAnd if I never see anyone, as long as I live, make this moronic hand sign when they are having their photograph taken, I will be happy. Why is it that such a high percentage of Japanese and Taiwanese seem to lose any ability for natural expression and pick this--the lowest common denominator of photographic interest?
ReplyDeleteAll you've wanted to know about the v sign!
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_sign
“丫头”的丫。
ReplyDeleteIn case the previous comment wasn't understandable, I was saying that the so-called Y is actually a Chinese character: 丫 (pronounced yā), as used in the word 丫头 / 丫頭.
ReplyDeleteThe "yeah!" should be exclaimed as if you were an excited but quiet ten-year-old who just learned that he won an award for coolness. projector installation toronto
ReplyDeleteThank you for writinng this
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