ARTICLE ON EXPRESSIVE BEHAVIORS

What's A-O.K. in the U.S.A. Is Lewd and Worthless Beyond

Published: August 18, 1996

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The opening session of Bangladesh's new Parliament turned into chaos Sunday after opposition legislators reacted with fury to an alleged offensive thumb gesture by Shipping Minister A.S.M. Abdur Rab.  The gesture is considered a grave insult in Bangladesh.  ''This is a dishonor not only to Parliament but to the nation,'' said the deputy leader of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, Badruddoza Chowdhury.  ''The minister must apologize for his showing of the thumb. And the speaker must must ask the minister to do so,'' he said amid shouting from his party colleagues.  WHAT had the shipping minister done to provoke such wrath? He gave the old thumbs-up.

While in the United States, that's just a friendly sign for ''All right!'' or ''Good going!'' in Bangladesh, Australia and other parts of the world, particularly in Islamic countries, that jaunty gesture is the exact equivalent of an upraised middle finger. Yes, it is what is known to generations of high school students as ''flipping the bird.''   That may explain why one American newspaper correspondent's interviews with the random Islamic men on the street inevitably ended with the men furious. The correspondent wound up all of his interviews with a clap on the back, a big grin and a hearty thumbs up.   The thumbs-up is not the only gesture whose meaning an American innocent abroad could mistake. There is a huge array of cross-cultural gaffes to be made. Here are some examples, excerpted from ''Gestures: The Do's and Taboos of Body Language Around the World,'' by Roger E. Axtell (1991, reprinted by permission of the publisher, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.). JOHN KIFNER

The A-O.K.  The ''A-O.K.'' sign, with the thumb and index finger joined in a circle, has insulting and scatological connotations in many Latin American countries. So, when then Vice President Richard M. Nixon, who always had a certain grace problem, landed on one of his trips south of the border in the 1950's and emerged to greet a crowd with both hands up in a double ''A-O.K.,'' he was, in effect, telling the welcomers to -- well, you get the picture.

The A-O.K. does no better elsewhere:  A Frenchman, particularly in the South of France, would read that very same gesture as meaning ''zero'' or ''worthless.'' I once took a hotel room in France and when the concierge asked ''Is your room satisfactory?'' I replied with the ''O.K.'' sign. With a shrug of irritation, the concierge said, ''If you don't like it, we'll just have to find you another room.''  In Japan, the thumb and forefinger making a circle is used as symbol for money . . .

Because of this use, the gesture could have serious consequences when incorrectly used. Imagine a Western businessperson who has negotiated a contract with a Japanese and, at the conclusion, casually makes the O.K. sign . . . The Japanese might say to himself ''Oh! he's giving me the sign for 'money.' . . . Is he asking for a bribe?''

Patting a Child's Head  In India, Sri Lanka and Thailand, patting a child on the head would be shocking and offensive because the head is believed to be the seat of the soul.

'V' for Victory  You think it means ''victory'' or ''peace.'' But that isn't all it means in England:  There, if the palm and fingers face inward, it means 'Up yours!' especially if executed with an upward jerk of the fingers.  There may be a connection between the two meanings that dates back 500 years, when the French used to cut off the middle finger and forefinger of the English archers they captured in battle:  After the battles of Agincourt and Crecy, so the story goes, where the French were heavily defeated by the expert English archers, the surviving French were marched off the battlefield to the taunts of the victorious English. The English added further insult to the French by holding up their hands, forefinger and middle finger stiffly upright, palms inward, to show both fingers fully intact.

The 'Hook 'Em 'Horns' Sign  The ''hook 'em 'Horns'' sign, two outside fingers with the pinky and index finger raised up and the middle two fingers folded down, may be beloved of fans of the University of Texas football team, the Longhorns, and it is a good luck gesture in Brazil and Venezuela. Upsidedown, it is used in American baseball to signify ''two outs.'' But in parts of Africa it is a curse. It is not much appreciated in Italy either:

For millions of Italians it is the cornuto, and it signifies an entirely different meaning. It says, ''You are being cuckolded.'' In more kindly terms, one person is signaling to the other that ''Your spouse is being unfaithful.''

Oh, Waiter!Here the gesture for hailing a waiter is one arm halfway up in the air, sometimes with the index finger slightly raised. But in Japan that is rude. And in Germany it may bring more than you bargained for:  In places like Germany, the signal . . . means ''two,'' because two fingers (one finger and a thumb) are being held upright. So an American might be signaling in this fashion and then saying ''Waiter -- some water, please,'' and a German waiter would bring two glasses of water.To order one glass, try the thumbs-up.

Finger Beckoning  In certain places, scratching the air, hissing and even making kissing noises may be preferable to using another common American gesture, curling the index finger in and out, to beckon a waiter:In countries as widespread as Yugoslavia and Malaysia, that gesture is used only for calling animals. Therefore, using it to beckon a human would be terribly impolite.In Indonesia and Australia, it is also used for beckoning ''ladies of the night.''

Tapping Head With Forefinger  It means ''smart'' here.  In Holland, if the finger is tapped to the center of the forehead, it means ''he's crazy.''

He's Crazy  Rotating the forefinger around in front of the ear has two entirely different meanings. In the United States it usually connotes that someone or something is ''crazy.'' In Argentina, it can be a signal to indicate ''you have a telephone call.''

Stop  Here we know it as the signal for ''Stop!'' or ''That's enough.'' In Greece, it is called the Moutza, or hand push, and it has filthy roots: The moutza reaches back into ancient Greek history when fecal matter and dirt were hurled or pushed into the face of war prisoners. . . . And in West Africa this gesture means ''You could have any one of five fathers!'' which is another way of calling a person a bastard.

Hands in Pockets If you think you can save yourself a load of trouble by simply shoving your hands in your pockets, think again:  Keeping one's hands in one's pockets when conversing in either social or business situations is considered an impolite posture in such diverse locales as Belgium, Indonesia, France, Finland, Japan and Sweden.