OK gesture

In other contexts or cultures, similar gestures may have different meanings including those that are negative, offensive, financial, numerical, devotional, political,[1] or purely linguistic.

When proffered by one person toward another in Ancient Greece, the gesture was of one professing their love for another, and the sentiment was conveyed more in the touching of fingertips than in the ring that they formed.

[3] Quintilian's chironomy prescribed variations in context for the gesture's use during specific points of a speech: to open, give warning or praise or accusation, and then to close a declamation.

Ethologist Desmond Morris posits that the joined thumb-and-forefinger communicates precision in grasping something literally or figuratively, and that the shape formed by their union represents the epitome of perfection—a circle—hence the gesture's transcultural message that things are "exactly right" or "perfect".

[2][5] Across Italy, the gesture remained in use as one for making points in conversation when moved about to express discursive precision, but when held still in an upright position with fingers jutting skyward, it became an emblem of perfection.

[2] Early records of the sign's usage in the English-speaking world date to British physician-philosopher John Bulwer's 1644 Chirologia, "The naturall language of the hand composed of the speaking motions, and discoursing gestures thereof.

"[6] Among the many hand gestures detailed by Bulwer, he described one as "The top of the fore-finger moved to joyne with the naile of the Thumbe that's next to it, the other fingers in remitter,"[7] and said that it was "opportune for those who relate, distinguish, or approve".

[9] Several other broadsheets in Boston, New York and Philadelphia ran with the expression in their own columns, some with misspellings of "all correct" such as oll korrect, bringing the phrase into the vernacular of American English.

The following year Democrats began using the phrase and its accompanying gesture in support of president Martin Van Buren's campaign for reelection.

Dating back to the tenth century in Europe, the gesture of thumb and forefinger forming a ring with the remaining fingers extended was used in a set of standardized ecclesiastical signs employed by Christian monks under vows of silence to represent numerous religious rites and objects.

If the thumb and forefinger took hold of a specific part of one's own clothing or body such as the hood of a cowl, a lock of hair, or skin on the left hand, the gesture could stand for things as diverse as "monk" or "horse" or "parchment".

[25] A PISL primer printed in an 1888 issue of the Canadian residential school newspaper Our Forest Children specifies that the left hand be used to indicate sunrise and the right for sunset.

[26] A more complicated series of movements with hands held in the gesture as if drawing a thread or stretching an elastic can signify death, or more specifically, "After a long time, you die.

[36] This number gesture is primarily used in China's southern provinces, while in the north, "3" may also be expressed by the raised index, middle, and ring fingers as it is in English-speaking countries.

[40] Whenever these imprisoned villagers took leave of each other, they did so with the phrase "Be seeing you", accompanied by the gesture held up in front of their own eye as a reminder that despite any pretenses of freedom, they were all prisoners.

The series' lead actor Patrick McGoohan stated that the show had adopted the gesture from the sign of the fish used by early Christians.

[46] During the film's opening credit sequence, the Vitarka Mudra title transforms into a hand pointing at the viewer announcing the name of the director as "U".

The United Macedonia Salute remains controversial among many people in the Balkan region, especially those living within parts of Greece or Bulgaria that Macedonian nationalists wish to claim as provinces for their country.

[60] The circle game also made a resurgence in the 2010s as a form of photobomb prank or internet meme, and began to engender controversy after the OK gesture was also sometimes used as a white power symbol starting in 2017.

[62][65] According to The Boston Globe, users on 4chan's /pol/ ("Politically Incorrect") board were instructed in February 2017 to "flood Twitter and other social media websites...claiming that the OK hand sign is a symbol of white supremacy" as part of a campaign dubbed "Operation O-KKK".

While some members of the alt-right started using the symbol after the launch of the 4chan campaign, it initially remained ambiguous whether or not it was being used to communicate genuine adherence to white supremacy, or with deliberately ironic motives.

In contrast to Japan's use of the expression to represent coins and wealth, the gesture's "O" shape stands for "zero" meaning "worth nothing" in France and Tunisia.

[10] In Kuwait and other Arab countries, the shaking of this sign represents the evil eye and is used as a curse or a threat, sometimes in conjunction with verbal condemnation.

[92] In France, where widespread use has seeped in through American culture, the gesture's positive "OK" sentiment became popular in the north of the country while its negative meaning as "worthless" remained in the south.

[4] In other circumstances, the gesture's varied meanings are less easily reconciled, as was the case in the 1950s Brazil when United States Vice President Richard Nixon emerged from his airplane displaying the sign with each hand.