The Lost Secret Sign Language of Sawmill Workers

[Recursion]

http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-lost-secret-sign-language-of-sawmill-workers

When the linguists Martin Meissner and Stuart Philpott first started visiting sawmills in British Columbia in the 1970s, they thought they’d find workers communicating without speaking, probably with some simple gestures that contained technical information. There was a long history of such communication in the face of extreme noise: For centuries, American mill workers had used systems of hand signals to tell each other, across the unending roar of the saws, how to cut wood.

What they discovered, though, floored them. The researchers witnessed a sign language system complete enough that workers could call each other “you crazy old farmer,” tell a colleague that he was “full of crap,” or tell each other when the foreman was “fucking around over there.”

Outside of deaf communities, hearing people sometimes develop what are now often called “alternate sign languages” to communicate when words will not do. In monasteries, monks uses signs to communicate in areas where speech is forbidden, for instance. In industries where machines made speaking impossible—in ships’ engine rooms, in steel mills, textile mills, and sawmills—workers also found ways to communicate with their hands.

In 1955, when Popular Mechanics covered these industrial sign languages, many were already disappearing. But in the 1970s, Meissner and Philpott found a sign language still used in sawmills. Their research further honed in on the culture of one particular mill where workers had developed a system of 157 signs that they used not just to communicate about their work but to trade small talk, tell crude jokes and tease each other.

[Paka]

1. It's fascinating how humans adjust...

...to situations and their surroundings. How under many situations they can be "so smart" and in other areas, "so dumb."

[BumRushDaShow]

2. As a kid growing up riding commuter trains to school

(never ever had any yellow school bus to transport me to/from school), I used to watch the train engineers use hand signs in the front cabin - either to engineers on other trains or to any workers on the train platforms or tracks. Of course a big use of hand/finger signs can be seen going on from baseball catchers to pitchers.

Pretty cool with the mills in any case...

[jtuck004]

3. I suspect there is a fair amount of secret sign language in the answers to various posters on DU.

But mostly people never see it, I think.

[bluedigger]

4. My great grandfather worked in a sawmill his whole life.

He wouldn't have been very good at sign language, though. He only had five fingers.

[malthaussen]

5. My favorite story about sign language...

... back in the bad old days, the New York Giants employed a pitcher named "Dummy" Taylor who earned the appellation (common in those days) by being deaf and dumb. The whole team learned sign language so they could communicate with the pitcher. And at least one umpire (probably Hank O'Day) also knew sign language -- and ejected Taylor a couple of times for using sign language to cuss him out.

-- Mal

[Recursion]

6. Back in the 1890s, a Gallaudet quarterback had an idea

For a decade or so, competing football teams had been sending their defensive line and secondary to sign language classes so they could spot the plays Gallaudet was calling.

Enter QB Paul D. Hubbard. He looked at the rules and realized the offensive team could in fact be anywhere behind the line as long as they were set when the play clock expired. So he said "let's come 'huddle' 10 yards back". The game was revolutionized by this innovation.

This is the example I keep coming back to when people complain about disability inclusiveness in sports: it makes the game better for everyone.

[gladium et scutum]

7. In the 1960s

my uncle drove a log truck in Washington State. I got to ride with him several times. He used to pass hand signs to other log truck drivers he met on the highway. I asked what he was doing, he told me that the hand signs told other drivers where the police/state patrol were, the scales were open, traffic was stopped ahead, and several other items of information useful to other log truckers. I expected that the long haul truck drivers used similar signs before the days of CBs.