Deaf people of Reddit, what is the strangest thing you’ve seen a non-sign-language-speaker accidentally sign while gesturing with their hands?

1. Well. My GF is deaf. She was teaching me the signs for breakfast lunch and dinner, which are incredibly intuitive. It's the first letter to your lips for each one (B L D). I was unfortunately signing dinner against my nose, which means dick. She was dying laughing, and couldnt breathe to explain why.
   — itslate


2. My good friend is very hard of hearing and he took me into his workplace, a little crepe restaurant where all the employees are deaf or hard of hearing. I don't know very much sign, but I was trying to be polite by saying things like hello and thank you, and eventually I got the chance to say something more complicated that my friend had been teaching me. He asked if we should go upstairs and I signed " it's time to get fucked up" on accident. His coworkers saw it and laughed but thank god his boss didn't.
   — Ryan151515


3. A breakup - “..it’s not a good time in life. I fart only a little but we can’t get along and struggle to see each other’s point of view..”
   — ItsBritneyBitxh






4. Not deaf, but once I was watching people sign together because I was taking an ASL class and was curious. One of them was talking about math equations, and they ended up with some multiplication in there (you can probably see where this is going) and person attempting to sign the equation to the deaf person of course makes the sign for 'sex' instead of 'multiplication' and all I see the deaf woman do is put a hand over her face and turn away in disgust, then turns back with a question mark and continues with "Did you mean... *signs 'multiplication'.* The signer noticed this and yells "Oh! Oops!!"
   — MrRoboto12345


5. Honestly, you kinda just tune it out after a while. The weird and funny moments come from the people who are learning sign language. Some examples are that the signs for meet and fuck are very close, and a lot of people sign vagina when they are ordering a pizza. Edit: I’m not saying the sign for pizza and vagina are similiar, my bad for not writing it better. I’m saying that people who don’t know sign will often mimic the shape of a slice of pizza thinking that it’s the sign for pizza.
   — LordOfDB


6. Deaf person here: It's a hard question to answer. For deaf folks, it's very easy to tell whether someone is doing sign language or just gesturing. I suppose the one sign I see people use a lot is the number 9, which is identical to the OK gesture. Just don't put it under your waist, that completely changes the meaning.
   — jamesno26






7. My friend, who knew a little bit of sign told my mom that she spent the summer masturbating rather than working, as she intended to. That was over twenty years ago and I still heckle her about it. As I recall Mom looked a little startled.
   — ipsquibibble


8. My parents are Deaf, BSL is my first language. Mr Tumble, very famous UK children's TV personality, frequently signs "fuck" instead of "happy". He is a TERRIBLE signer.
   — mrsfran


9. TIL everything is a vagina in sign language.
   — echisholm






10. I had a couple hearing impaired students in my classes this year, and as part of each students's accommodations, an interpreter was assigned to my class. I spent the year trying to learn enough ASL to have a relevant conversation about my subject matter and would practice with both the students and their interpreters each morning. So this happened (all of this is in ASL): Me: Good morning! Interpreter: Good morning! How are you? Me: Furniture! She had to sit down, she was laughing so hard... 🤷‍♂️
    — zieglertron2000


11. Not deaf, just know a little ASL. Pastor once tried to sign that we should hunger for God. The sign for hunger, when repeated and done faster, means horny. I love you God, but maybe just as a friend, k?
    — warstep87