Question about a scene in "Hush"

[ILLYRIAN]

I agree with Five by Five, giving the 'V' is so commonplace these days.

hyperballaddrad 's post [last of page 1] nearly got it right, but the f_ _k off
was wrong, after all it wasn't OO Sunnydale it was UC Sunnydale !

 

[untouched]

wow!! I had no idea. I mean, I knew something was going on. And it is Spike so you have to be expecting almost anything. It's good to know! Now the scene can be even more fun! Thank you, guys!

 

[Lily]

i'm blown away by the fact that it's not a commonplace gesture in the US
we have it here in Australia too (like britain) i just assumed it was an internationally recognised symbol for bugger off 😀

i remember when i first saw spike flipping xander off coupled with his expression of contempt i laughed so hard my sides hurt which was a nice break in the ep

 

[Gremalien]

i'm blown away by the fact that it's not a commonplace gesture in the US
we have it here in Australia too (like britain) i just assumed it was an internationally recognised symbol for bugger off 😀

i remember when i first saw spike flipping xander off coupled with his expression of contempt i laughed so hard my sides hurt which was a nice break in the ep

Well, in the US, we've used it as a peace sign or charades. Charades is how I took it as if he was saying "two words"----F* You!!! So I took it as the Vicky or whatever anyway. But it's good to know that I shouldn't be flipping the peace sign all over the UK.

 

[Xin Rong]

I am in absolute shock that not everyone knows the ruder meaning behind this symbol!! I had no idea it was a British thing.

Me too. I thought it was one of those world wide symbols. I knew about its origin and stuff but didnt know it was only a this side of the pond thing. Well ya learn something new lol

 

[Lindsey McDonald]

Well, in the US, we've used it as a peace sign or charades. Charades is how I took it as if he was saying "two words"----F* You!!! So I took it as the Vicky or whatever anyway. But it's good to know that I shouldn't be flipping the peace sign all over the UK.

For us the peace sign is the other way around: i.e. palm outwards. We would do that for charades too. Otherwise, it's swearing.

I'm just amazed that it made it into the season 5 opening credits!

 

[LittleMissLikesToFight]

peace sign was palm outwards like, in the 60s. then rappers kind of made the palm inwards way the like "ghetto" peace sign.

We use the wonderful middle finger here in the good ol' U S of A lol. why, just walk through manhattan and you'll probably see it a bunch during high traffic times!

And Joss has said like as the show progressed they got away with a lot more, and using british slang and gestures was a way of doing that without being censored or insulting american viewers. i always knew of the british connotation of the gesture but so many people don't that it was fine for them to do it on the show. hasn't he done it more than once, too(spike that is)?

 

[Jaded Wolf]

Without the British knowledge of the backwards "V" sign, I've always interpreted it as Spike giving Xander "the birdie". I figured it was done like that to avoid the censors because Joss Whedon is clever like that. Spike was definetely telling Xander what he could go do with himself though. Spike is awesome!

 

[Hello Cutie]

Oh god, I didnt realise other people in the rest of the world wouldn't understand the common usage for the 'V' sign- to stick two fingers up at someone over here is to tell them to 'F*** off' or words to that effect (for Spike, it'd be 'sod off' cuz thats the sentence he tends to use the most).

But thats definitely what it is- Xander is blaming Spike, so Spike says 'oh sod off' with a hand gesture- a very Brit thing to do nowadays 🙂 I like that they've included that then, if its not something common to all countries- it means Joss is really picking up on the smallest details on Spike and making them British!

Its so adorable that others don't know what it means!! Aww

Edit:

Oh and there's a theory that the gesture comes from the battle of Agincourt.

The French would capture British archers and chop their middle and first fingers off on their right hand, to stop them using a bow and arrow.

So, at Agincourt, the British archers all stuck up their 2fingers at the French in a 'haha look we have our fingers' sort of way.

The gesture was kept and is now used in a 'feck off' way in modern times.