23 lines
1.4 KiB
Plaintext
23 lines
1.4 KiB
Plaintext
handwave
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/handwayv/ [poss. from gestures characteristic of stage magicians] 1. v. To
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gloss over a complex point; to distract a listener; to support a (possibly
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actually valid) point with blatantly faulty logic. 2. n. The act of
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handwaving. Boy, what a handwave! If someone starts a sentence with
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Clearly... or Obviously... or It is self-evident that... , it is a good bet
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he is about to handwave (alternatively, use of these constructions in a
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sarcastic tone before a paraphrase of someone else's argument suggests that
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it is a handwave). The theory behind this term is that if you wave your
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hands at the right moment, the listener may be sufficiently distracted to
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not notice that what you have said is bogus. Failing that, if a listener
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does object, you might try to dismiss the objection with a wave of your
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hand. The use of this word is often accompanied by gestures: both hands up,
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palms forward, swinging the hands in a vertical plane pivoting at the elbows
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and/or shoulders (depending on the magnitude of the handwave);
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alternatively, holding the forearms in one position while rotating the hands
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at the wrist to make them flutter. In context, the gestures alone can
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suffice as a remark; if a speaker makes an outrageously unsupported
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assumption, you might simply wave your hands in this way, as an accusation,
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far more eloquent than words could express, that his logic is faulty.
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