GESTURES: The Do’s and Taboos of Body...

GESTURES: The Do’s and Taboos of Body Language Around the World by Roger E. Axtell, illustrated by Mike Fornwald (Wiley: $9.95). Anthropologists estimate that humans use more than 5,000 distinct gestures to communicate greetings, insults and other information. Axtell’s amusing guide reveals that many of these gestures are anything but universal: “Thumbs up!” connotes satisfaction in the United States; in Australia, it means “Up yours!” When an Argentine makes a circle beside his head with his index finger, he means someone has a telephone call; an American uses the same motion to suggest someone’s crazy. Other gestures are unique to specific cultures: In France, people play an imaginary flute to indicate boredom, while a skeptical Israeli points to the palm of one hand with the opposite index finger to indicate “grass will grow here before that comes true.” Interestingly, the “one-finger salute,” familiar to anyone who drives the L. A. freeways, turns out to be one of the oldest known gestures: References to it have been found in Roman documents more than 2,000 years old.