Terms And Gestures...

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I remember when someone while I was in my youth put their two fingers up at me and I was annoyed with them so I put up ALL my fingers at them back, and people thought that was funny, but to me it was the ultimate insult.

But I am thinking of the term "On yer bike" (Means "Go away" as I found out when I did not have my bike with me). But to reply as an ultimate insult, should one say "On yer lorry" in return? Or is there some significance to the bicycle? Lorries are bigger, or how about "On yer containership" or "On yer oil tankership" or "On yer cruiseliner" or something like that?

In school I had a reply ready for insults. If someone called me something I said "It takes one to know one" which made their friends laugh at them instead.

But I try not to use terms I am not sure what they mean. It does not feel right.

But some of these terms people use where they don't know what they are saying and yet they use them? Why?
I supposed me learning automated replies is the same thing? But my replies are not usually intended to be rude. I have just found ways to reply I can use for any circumstace, but it puzzles me when people say things that they don't mean and with some people, just trying to work out what they mean when every other word is a swear word, so when I haven't a clue what they actually mean in what they said they double up the swear words and expect me to know?

Here is another annoyingly confusing term they started using on TV a few years ago and on adverts where they say:

"How good is that?"

Well I don't know! You have not told me so how do I know how good it is? You have not finished your paragraph to tell me how good it is so how will I ever know?

Another one where they go up to a stunningly beautiful custom car and insult it by calling it "Sick". That is awful and so insulting to the hard work that has gone into the car!

We need to be careful the words we use!

Last edited by Mountain Goat on 27 Oct 2022, 5:49 pm, edited 2 times in total.

"On your bike" is a put down because it assumes you only have the cheapest mode of transport available.
Therefore, telling them "on your lorry" wouldn't have the same level of insult.
Lorries are expensive to buy and run, so if they have a lorry to hightail it out of there, they're doing well.
Maybe if they tell you "on your bike" you should ask them which bicycle in particular of several very expensive bicycles they wish you to be on.
Still doesn't beat the lorry.

Ah. So to insult back I need to say "On yer legs".

Yer.

"How good is that?"

Is an advertising psychology trick.
When someone says that, most people automatically agree, which helps the seller to push a sale: "you said it was good, so therefore you want it!"; it's been done forever.
Now everyone uses it.

That usually prompts me to ask if they want some brutal honesty.

It is a term that keeps me waiting for them to finish the statement.

I hear the term used a lot these days on those DIY shows.

"How good is that?"

"Mate, you've tacked some dodgy boards together and done a bad paint job and made something that's completely uneccessary. I give it one star out of five. Not good at all."

Haha!

Kinda like "is this a great country, or what?"

You Earth humans have so many strange words for things. And just when we space people get used to or figure out your languages, you end up changing them.

What a load of zxplfblxmgx.

The key thing here is that it is supposed to be a leading question:
It doesn't ask "is that good" but "how good" this should lead the person to think something like "very good" or "super good" or so on. And not "very bad" or "super bad".

My brother once worked in a shoe store selling expensive shoes. One trick he told me about is to show someone more than one pair or style of shoe, then say something like "which of these do you like the best?"
Again the idea is that any answer benefits the seller, but the buyer feels like they have choices, and buyers usually like choices, but they are now now choosing "which one" instead or "buy or not".

These things don't always work, but in terms of understanding how the words fit the idea it helps to think along these lines.

On yer bike is Cockney Rhyming Slang for Take a hike.

I think the idea here is that the two fingers indicate two legs up in the air.

I watched a movie about Winston Churchill. In the film he intends to display the "V for Victory" sign with his hand for a press photographer. He displays the hand gesture with the palm facing away from the camera, instead of towards the camera.
(I think this was based on a real newspaper photo - I don't know I wasn't born at the time and I never lived in England).
In the film one of his employees has to explain to the "High Class" Churchill the meaning of the gesture he displayed is "up yours". The employee who is "lower class" considers this common knowledge but still hesitates to put the thing into words.
Churchill insists. The employee finishes up by saying "this way is ok" (palm out - V for Victory) "but not this way" (palm in - up yours). Churchill takes the lesson well and chuckles to himself now that he knows the rules.

In the U.S. we have a similar gesture which is called "the bird". the hand is displayed with palm away from the viewer and the middle finger extended, the rest of the hand closed like a fist. "The bird" is meant to look like a male's private parts. The words "the bird" come from the idea of a baby bird sitting in a nest with its neck extended upwards. The nest is made of grass and so forth. Again the image is like that of a male's private parts with the grass representing hair, two eggs representing balls and the bird representing the shaft.

The "insult" part comes from the connection between power and sex. The idea is that I am so powerful I could use my physical power to force sex on you and prove myself powerful and you weak.

It also indicates "shock value" in that "I am so powerful that I can do away with polite convention and not mention sexual things, but instead use them as an insult which will shock you, showing me to be powerful and you to be weak".

The connection between sex and violence, or power is a complex one, but fits in with many other insults and swear words.

So: more than two fingers simply does not have the same effect as an insult.
It tends to convey "I don't understand what you said" more than "I insult you 2.5 more times than you insulted me".

Wikipedia has an article on the V sign (and the backwards rude version). It also shows a photo of Winston Churchill misusing V For Victory.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_sign

Other gestures

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_gestures