These idioms further validate ASL as a language unique and independent of English.
Idioms in ASL bond people in the Deaf community because they are expressions that only in-group members can understand.
[3] "I-I-I", the letter, not "me", signed repeatedly with alternating hands on the chest is an idiom that is translated into the English word egotistical.
Cokely & Baker-Shenk write, "ASL seems to have very few widely-used idioms, according to the standard definition of 'idiom.
Some authors have noticed that many signs that people often think are idioms in ASL i.e., "Out of sight", "On the fence", "Funny None/Funny Zero", are either sign compounds with transparent meaning ("Funny none" means "not funny") or single-sense lexical items that either cannot be translated into English by using a single lexical item, or whose translation requires an English idiom.