Response to Ann Hutchinson Guest’s and Peggy Hackney’s "Whole Body Sign" Posting

Response to Ann Hutchinson Guest’s and Peggy Hackney’s "Whole Body Sign" Posting
Submitted by Charlotte Wile -- November 15, 2001

As I understand it from Ann’s verbal descriptions, the following signs were discussed in her correspondence with Peggy.

Ex. 1) A figure eight floating within a circle.
Ex. 2) The "trident" sign developed by Knust.
Ex. 3) A figure eight and a circle made into one sign.
Ex. 4) A circle containing the sign for "any body part."

Ex. 1 clearly cannot be used to indicate the whole body, because numbers in circles already have a different meaning.

I personally like the "old" whole body sign (Ex. 2); its derivation (the three line staff) is logical, it’s easy to draw, and it can’t be confused with other symbols.

On the other hand, Ex. 3 does look more "organic" than Ex. 2, and it fits in with Peggy’s signs for "Patterns of Total Body Connectivity." Also, I think Ann is correct: Ex. 1 and Ex. 3 do look different, so they would not be confused.

I like Ex. 3 better than Ex. 4.

In discussing the various ideas for a whole body sign, I think it would be useful to consider how they might be adapted or modified to indicate "body quadrants"(i.e., the whole body divided into right upper, left upper, right lower, and left lower portions). For instance, In our September 7, 2000 posting in this thread, Ray Cook and I presented some ways the "trident" sign could be adapted.

Here is one idea for using the proposed "figure eight" sign as the basis for quadrant indications.