SHIRT in sign language

How to sign "shirt" in American Sign Language (ASL):

Meaning: a garment for the upper body made of cotton or a similar fabric, usually lightweight, with sleeves, and buttons down the front.

Pronunciation (sign description): Two-handed "5" handshape on the sides of torso move from the upper toward the lower.

Related signs: T-shirt, BLOUSE.

Old day story

My Deaf father told me a funny anecdote about one of his old days at his residential school for the deaf in Wroclaw, Poland in the 1960s. As a mischievous boy that he was, he and his few Deaf schoolmates sneaked into a large apple orchid or plantation just across from their deaf school. They picked some apples.

Faraway the dog barked. Bark, bark. Some man caught two of them by hands. What did the man do? My dad and his buddies didn't vocally speak, only manually speak that the man didn't know. Would he phone... who? Where did the boys come from? Only if he had a phone. Only if there is a phone book. So, now what? Let the boys go?

Cleverly, the man took the boys' shirts off to hold and let the boys go. The boys went back to the school half-naked and brought some teacher or supervisor to the site to get their shirts back. And, of course, an explanation from the man.

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