for those actually wondering what she is saying, and the deal with the tongue, from my friend, a sign language student  "the interpreter is cautioning against people driving far from home - the tongue shows a far distance and modifies the sign for DRIVE. "

Rincewind53: Or maybe people should stop making fun of interpreters.

I've never seen one that looks more like a spastic seal being slowly dropped into a woodchipper, I think this chick sucks at what she does. I didn't recognize a single sign, and she's throwing so much body English into those signs, even if you did recognize one, you wouldn't be sure you were seeing it right. It's like hiring Mushmouth from Fat Albert to verbally translate.

TomD9938: spottymax: TomD9938: Smelly Pirate Hooker: The Weather Channel is calling it "Nemo." They've started naming winter storms like the NWS names hurricanes.

Is that for everywhere, or just when it snows in the northeast? If it's everywhere I'm going to get an "I Survived ______ " shirt made up.

Down here in Tennessee, we had winter storm Khan a couple of weeks ago.  (And, yes, you can imagine the fun the local media had with that one)

A lot of "KHAAAAAAAN!!!" references, I'm sure.

Sure enough, in Minnesota we get ours named now as well. We've got Winter Storm Orko coming in on Sunday night. Look for wall to wall coverage on CNN.

/ Orko?

Or maybe people should stop making fun of interpreters American Sign Language. FTFM

Dude, people making stage gestures in front of a camera (where they're not necessary to the medium) will always be funny, whether it's intentional (there's a large room with deaf people in the far back behind the camera) or not, and whether it's an interpreter or not.

It's part of the language.  Deaf people don't have access to tone of voice, intonations, little subtle variations of voice.  They make it up visually.  Some visual aspect of ASL like body posture, facial expressions, where your eyes are looking.  They can be absolutely as grammatical as any feature in English.  For example, to make a sentence a Question in ASL you sign the same sentence with a question face.  And they have TWO, unlike English.  Sign a verb out longer in time, and you've shown the action took a long time.  Sign like a Mad Woman and you're yelling "DRIVE, DON'T DON'T!"

I'm guessing the Terp was a CODA, a hearing Child of a Deaf Adult.  Raised a native speaker of ASL with English as a second language that wasn't "stage gestures," that's expressions she grew up with from her parent's friends.  That's real ASL.  That's real Deaf Culture.

ASL was created by America's Deaf Community by themselves (almost miraculously) but most natural Sign Languages were created the same way.  Real natural Sign involved gestures that seem alien and inappropriate to the native Hearing Culture.  Deaf people get regularly MOCKED by Hearing people because of their use of overt visual cues that are as natural to the Deaf Communities as they are bizarre to the same community's Hearing Culture.

What you have to understand about Natural Sign and Deaf Culture in general is that, it is is how that Deaf Community has worked out to communicate best by themselves.  And as a Hearing Person, you have no right to JUDGE how your Deaf Community chooses to sign amongst themselves.  You have the right to think it's funny to yourselves but not to MOCK it because that's how your local Deaf Community has worked it out to communicate amongst themselves and how they communicate best.

For an Oral Language counterpart, in many Western Languages, intonations connote mood.  While in East Asian languages, like Chinese, altering the tones and pitches of a word gives it often different word meanings.  Because the Western ear is used to shifts in pitch indicating the speaker's mood or state of mind.  They listen to the Chinese seemingly RANDOM tones and wild, rapid changes in pitch and speed and judge that the Chinese person is CRAZY or really alien and does not think like them.

Or take Arnold Schwarzenegger's Austrian accent.  The tonal intonations sound to the English Ear like BRAGGING and belittling others.  But that's really the natural Austrian accent as well as other German accents.  Many natural German accents, with that set of intonations sound that way to an English-speaking ear, when it's really just the natural intonations of many native German Accents.  And because it was this Austrian Body builder who was the first guy you recognized this pattern of Intonation from, you can either take from that that Germans are conceited, macho a*holes who think they are superior to everyone else, like "Hans und Franz" from SNL.  Or you can laugh along with AHNOLD to the fact that his natural speech patterns sound like THAT to the American Ear, as he has learnt to accept.

Smelly Pirate Hooker: Need a Dispenser Here: I'm just waiting for the media to brand this Super Nor'easter 2013.

Didn't you read the article. The Weather Channel is calling it "Nemo." They've started naming winter storms like the NWS names hurricanes.

The fun part?  Remember that weather almost invariably travels from west to east, meaning that the ENTIRE COUNTRY AT THIS POINT has seen this storm and dealt with it.  Not a single fark was given by the people in the northeast then, why should we now?

I'm pretty sure it's not ASL. It appears as though a post-menopausal spastic lesbian realizes she misses dick.

I like how the woman standing behind the governor is so fat she's hot enough to need to fan herself in the middle of the winter, in a dress while not even wearing a jacket.

Girl, you don't need a fan you need a SALAD.

I think the lady with the fan is just as funny.

Yeah, my mom is deaf and I've been around enough deaf people to say fark deaf people. I've never met such a smug, self centered group of people. For fark's sake, they get angry to the point of ostracizing their friends who choose to fix the disability in their children with cochlear implants.

These are a group of people who will let their children remain crippled, rather than fix them, to protect their precious deaf culture.

translation: Despite appearances I am not a lesbian.

It would not be nearly so amusing, if they hadn't picked up some random 60 year old homeless, toothless woman to do the signing.

Why is the fat black lady fanning herself? Theres a farking blizzard on the way?

Coastalgrl: g4lt: TomD9938: spottymax: TomD9938: Smelly Pirate Hooker: The Weather Channel is calling it "Nemo." They've started naming winter storms like the NWS names hurricanes.

Is that for everywhere, or just when it snows in the northeast? If it's everywhere I'm going to get an "I Survived ______ " shirt made up.

Down here in Tennessee, we had winter storm Khan a couple of weeks ago.  (And, yes, you can imagine the fun the local media had with that one)

A lot of "KHAAAAAAAN!!!" references, I'm sure.

Sure enough, in Minnesota we get ours named now as well. We've got Winter Storm Orko coming in on Sunday night. Look for wall to wall coverage on CNN.

/ Orko?

[upload.wikimedia.org image 288x230]

oh wait...what cartoon is that from? He Man?

Yep. Old-school He-Man.

babyty: for those actually wondering what she is saying, and the deal with the tongue, from my friend, a sign language student  "the interpreter is cautioning against people driving far from home - the tongue shows a far distance and modifies the sign for DRIVE. "

That is untrue. There are many ways to indicate distance, and THAT is not one of them.

/Unless it's some sort of weird New England variation
/It isn't

How could the lady behind her waving the fan be so hot?

Why do they have these sign language people anyway? Did everyone forget about closed captioning?

spottymax: TomD9938: Smelly Pirate Hooker: The Weather Channel is calling it "Nemo." They've started naming winter storms like the NWS names hurricanes.

Is that for everywhere, or just when it snows in the northeast? If it's everywhere I'm going to get an "I Survived ______ " shirt made up.

Down here in Tennessee, we had winter storm Khan a couple of weeks ago.  (And, yes, you can imagine the fun the local media had with that one)

A lot of "KHAAAAAAAN!!!" references, I'm sure.

Sure enough, in Minnesota we get ours named now as well. We've got Winter Storm Orko coming in on Sunday night. Look for wall to wall coverage on CNN.

/ Orko?

TomD9938: Smelly Pirate Hooker: The Weather Channel is calling it "Nemo." They've started naming winter storms like the NWS names hurricanes.

Is that for everywhere, or just when it snows in the northeast? If it's everywhere I'm going to get an "I Survived ______ " shirt made up.

Down here in Tennessee, we had winter storm Khan a couple of weeks ago.  (And, yes, you can imagine the fun the local media had with that one)

mongbiohazard: I like how the woman standing behind the governor is so fat she's hot enough to need to fan herself in the middle of the winter, in a dress while not even wearing a jacket.

Girl, you don't need a fan you need a SALAD.

Really, she's not in a church with no AC in the south in the middle of June.

If you're stuck inside because of the storm, roll a reeeeeeeeally big joint and lick the paper thusly.......

"Too many dicks on the dance floor."

/too many dicks