Fingerspelling and Lipreading in Grade School

I ran into a classmate from high school online. She emailed me through classmates.com and we caught up with each other within a few emails. She stays in touch with two other classmates, one of which brought back memories. Robbie loved to fingerspell with me from across the classroom. He was a clown borderline troublemaker. I guess he liked the ability to communicate without the teacher and most students understanding.
Then there was Bryan in high school. When we took chemistry together, he loved to say innocent phrases that “look” like inappropriate ones to a lipreader. His favorite lines?
* I want a Fig Newton.
* Olive oil.
I won’t translate the first one, but olive oil can look like “I love you” to a lipreader. I’ve had plenty of lipreading accidents where I misinterpreted what someone said. By the way, Bryan is a doctor.

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  1. LOL! I never heard that first one before–too funny!

    • Diana on September 14, 2007 at 8:59 pm

    I love that. As a lip reader myself I have a few horror stories! Hehe

    • Kim on September 21, 2007 at 5:33 pm

    This is funny!! I never thought about kids and lipreading! Thanks for the laughs. 🙂

    • lette on September 22, 2007 at 8:29 am

    LOL!! I wanna fig newton 🙂 class, iv never seen that, I just did it in the mirror and laughed myself senceless, so simple and yet childishley funny!!

  2. Meryl,
    I think it’s olive juice, not olive oil.
    I love that one: fig newton. I just tried it on my husband, and he was like… you wanna… I laughed and showed it to him. He laughed. Thanks for spreading the laughter.
    Moxie Mocha

    • Meryl on September 23, 2007 at 8:09 am

    Actually, it’s both! Olive juice was the other one I could not remember — Bryan used both. Ha! Thanks for sharing your story! Hope he wasn’t too disappointed!

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