Talk:raise one's hand

strike or seem to be about to strike someone.
"she raised her hand to me"
2. (admit to [sth], confess)
https://www.wordreference.com/es/translation.asp?tranword=raise%20one%27s%20hand

--Backinstadiums (talk) 09:38, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

RFV discussion: May–June 2020

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raise one's hand

To dare to question. Equinox ◑ 09:40, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

@Equinox Can you use it in a sentence? Alexis Jazz (talk) 19:27, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

You should ask @DCDuring since he added it. I'm the one challenging it since I think it's erroneous. Equinox ◑ 19:31, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

I don't remember what I had in mind three years ago. I am guessing that the idea is that if one raises one's hand when not invited to, one is questioning, interrupting, challenging the speaker. I can't produce a citation. DCDuring (talk) 20:57, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

@DCDuring: two of the citations I added were invitations to do that, “Please raise your hand if you think that I hate Kevin.” and “Raise your hand if you want America to be less safe and less secure.” The other one, “Raise your hand if you absolutely love spiders.”, is more a figure of speech because the writer is addressing the reader, the reader is obviously not expected to actually raise their hand while reading a book. They're all literal though. Alexis Jazz (talk) 21:42, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

If a singer sings "let me hear you say yeah!" or "raise the roof" or "get on down" (haha, I have no idea what the popular beat combos would sing these days), they also aren't explicitly asking a specific person to do it. It's just sort of rhetoric. Equinox ◑ 21:49, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

When a singer sings "let me hear you say yeah!", "raise the roof!" or "get down!" they generally do expect the audience to respond and either say "yeah", make noise or dance uninhibited. In particular the first one they won't often sing in a studio I think. It doesn't matter that the audience is addressed as a whole and it doesn't matter whether they answer the call or not. When that writer wrote “Raise your hand if you absolutely love spiders.” they expected absolutely nobody to do it, and not just because very few people would "absolutely love" spiders. The readers were supposed, if anything at all, to think about whether they support the statement. Not to move limbs. Alexis Jazz (talk) 22:49, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

In none of the situations or citations mentioned is the hand-raiser challenging the speaker in any way. "Dare to question" would clearly refer to such a challenge. DCDuring (talk) 22:59, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Perhaps it's related to "not raise a hand in opposition", meaning to acquiesce to something objectionable. Chuck Entz (talk) 03:33, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

The way I read it, “Please raise your hand if you think that I hate Kevin.” means “I don't hate Kevin. Raise your hand if you dare to question me.”, but in terms of language you may be correct. I don't oppose deleting of that sense. Perhaps another should be added, like "ask yourself a question". Because the “Raise your hand if you absolutely love spiders.” example doesn't involve any kind of hand-raising. At best one might raise their hand in their mind while reading. Alexis Jazz (talk) 13:30, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

I think you are making too much of a usage that is an exploitation of the normal use, which occurs in classrooms and other meetings of similar size. Almost any expression can be similarly exploited in one way or another. For example, run over, as in "Run me over! I dare you!" You can't mean we need a different definition to reflect counterfactual, hypothetical, subjunctive, optative, etc usage. DCDuring (talk) 14:12, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

I do not think “Please raise your hand if you think that I hate Kevin.” means “I don't hate Kevin. Raise your hand if you dare to question me.” at all, I think it means “Please make a signal so I (or, we all) can count how many people here think I hate Kevin.” The speaker may assume that no-one will raise their hand because everyone knows the speaker doesn't hate Kevin, but "raise your hand" does not mean "dare to question me" on any lexical level, IMO/AFAICT. To some extent the "volunteer" sense in our entry is also reducible to this, "raise your hand as a signal if you are willing to volunteer", although there are a lot more "extended" metaphors based on that, e.g. calling someone a helium hand or saying they have helium hands, so it may be more keepable. - -sche (discuss) 18:05, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, you're right. I should have read more of the context. It could mean what I said, but in this case it doesn't. Alexis Jazz (talk) 21:05, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

I don't really understand the "dare to" part, but if we are to have "To volunteer by lifting one's hand" as a separate sense, then it seems to me that we should logically also have the "To lift one's hand in order to ask a question / make a request" sense too, since this is just as common a use of that gesture. Mihia (talk) 19:38, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

One gesture with two meanings isn't really two separate senses, any more than colon has a separate English sense for each separate thing a colon happens to be used for. Equinox ◑ 20:01, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Well, we do explain the meaning(s) of e.g. V sign and thumbs up. I think in cases where there is a standard term for a gesture, and the gesture has a standard meaning that is expected to be understood without full explanation, then it is reasonable for us to cover it. How far "raise one's hand" qualifies can be a grey area, I think. I mean, one could say "Teacher explained that adultery was a sin, but little Johnny raised his hand", expecting it to be understood that Johnny had a question (or wanted to go to the little boys' room). OTOH, there are variants such as "put up one's hand", "lift one's hand", so perhaps it is not enough of a fixed expression, in which case we are more getting into just explaining human behaviour generally, which is out of scope. I think it is a debatable case. Mihia (talk) 20:41, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

In fact, thinking about it, put up one's hand (to something) can also have the meaning of confess (to something), which I think has a good claim for an entry, since the expression is used when there is no physical gesture. Mihia (talk) 13:22, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure V sign should, in fact, be two senses. We could cover it with subsense lines, or with one definition that explains both potential meanings. Suppose that a weird electrical storm causes my fingers to perform that gesture, but I didn't intend to. It's still a V sign, which means that the mental intent doesn't count, only the physical movement, so it's only one "thing" despite two possible interpretations by the observer. Equinox ◑ 14:44, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, I think in my reply I slightly swerved your actual point. Yes, when it is the same gesture, just with different interpretations, I agree that the definition should essentially be structured along the lines of: "description of gesture, indicating meaning 1, meaning 2, etc.". However, as it would happen, V sign is two different gestures, depending on whether the palm is inwards or outwards. 17:47, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

And going back to raise one's hand, the other two entries presently read:

1. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see raise,‎ hand.

2. (idiomatic) To volunteer by lifting one's hand.

I question whether sense 2 is "idiomatic" at all. Isn't "raise one's hand" still just a literal description of the gesture, that has a certain meaning within a context? Mihia (talk) 19:28, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

I have had a go at reworking the entry along the lines suggested. I am not 100% sure about the result. I am not sure that the separate uses of the gesture are really "figurative" or "idiomatic" as the present layout suggests, nor even whether they are all really dictionary material. However, if we don't include them then I guess we have no article at all. The one I feel most confident is dictionary worthy is the "raise one's hand (against someone)" sense, and it would seem odd to mention this and not others. Anyway, if someone sees a better way to present this, please go ahead. Mihia (talk) 20:57, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

RFV-failed. Thanks to @Mihia for all of the cleanup. The challenged sense, however, is still unsupported. Kiwima (talk) 22:36, 20 June 2020 (UTC)