Signing For Dummies (40 page)

Fun & Games Answers

Chapter 8: Enjoying Yourself Come Rain or Shine

In This Chapter

Signing sports

Expressing recreation

Playing games in ASL

Signing weather

Asking rhetorical questions

You can relax in many ways. This chapter covers a few of the more active pastimes. We provide Signs for sports, recreations, and hobbies in this chapter. And because you probably don’t want to have a picnic in the rain, this chapter also deals with Signs for the weather.

Exercising Your Right to Recreate

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy — or so the saying goes. The point is that everyone loves to get out and play once in a while, whether on a team or individually. This section gives Signs for various team sports first, and then, for those of you who are more independent, Signs for solo sports. Have fun!

Getting into the competitive spirit

The majority of sports Signs look like what they represent. For example, the Signs for
tennis
and
baseball
mimic the swing of a racket and bat, respectively. Don’t you just love it when Signing is this easy? Check out the Signs in Table 8-1 for more team sports Signs.

Signing
ball
is easy: Mimic putting both hands on a ball; do it with a double motion. You can make the ball as small or as big as you want.

Wrestling and football are made the same way: Lock your fingers together; just don’t bend your fingers. If you do this with a double motion, that’s
football.
Lock your fingers once and go side to side, and you’ve signed
wrestling.

Box
and
boxing
are the same Sign. Put your fists up as if to be in a boxing stance. No two people hold up their fists the same way, so the Sign varies from person to person.

Table 8-2 gives you Signs for competitive terms. Some of these Signs are a bit tricky, so allow us to give you some explanation.

Match, game,
and
challenge
are signed the same. Game and match get a double motion, though, and challenge gets a single motion.

If you want to sign
versus,
use the same Sign as the one for challenge.

Compete, sports,
and
race
are all signed the same way. Make the manual A handshape with both hands, put your palms together and then alternate them back and forth. If you want to show fierce competition, grit your teeth and alternate your hands rapidly.

Signing
referee
or
umpire
is as simple as putting both index and middle fingertips on your lips, like blowing a whistle. You’ll probably see many Signs for these two words, but this Sign seems to be pretty well used.

Here’s a helping tip:
Score
is signed just like
count.