Name: Thumbs up! Why do we do it? | BBC Ideas
Uploaded: 2022-09-03T18:00:48.000Z
Duration: 2 min 49 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

In the Roman era, a thumbs up meant death for a gladiator.

the referee would press the thumb to the top of the fist.

There's a common misconception that a thumbs down meant death back then.

It's thought to have stemmed from this painting by Jean-Léon Gérôme

which shows a colosseum crowd with arms outstretched

It's though the positive meaning of thumbs up

started with English archers in the Middle Ages.

A fist with thumb up measured the correct brace height of the longbow,

so the gesture came to mean "All is well. Ready for battle."

Another origin of the gesture comes from merchants in Medieval times.

by licking their thumbs and pressing them together,

used the gesture to indicate "chocks away"

and it's thought that American GIs spread the gesture throughout Europe.

Hitchhikers around the world hope to "thumb a lift" from passing traffic,

but watch out in Greece, Sardinia and the Middle East,

and is more likely to get you into trouble than the next town.

it means it's time to swim back to the surface.

This signal has been known to confuse beginners.

A wiggled thumbs up means the number 10 in American sign language,

while a flat palm under a thumbs up is the sign for "help."

In the 1990s, influential US movie reviewers Siskal and Ebert,

used a thumbs up or thumbs down rating system on their TV show.

They even trademarked the phrase "two thumbs up".

Now, thumbs up and thumbs down signs are everywhere on the internet.

Subtitles ListPlay Video

Thumbs up! Why do we do it? | BBC Ideas

phrase

positive

common

insult