Thursday's (04/19/2001) C.S.I. had a scene at the end where Gil Grissom was speaking in sign language to a deaf instructor. Does anyone know what he was signing, or was he just faking it?

Danny in Yorktown, VA.

It was indeed sign language. No faking it at all. A very very cool thing for a show to do.

The last few minutes of the 4/19 episode when there were no sounds and no close-captioning were:

My mother was deaf since 8 years old.
She loved to swim and told me to be equal [deaf and hearing] with her is to go underwater.

I do hope that helps...it adds alot when you know that.

Thanks, so much! When the rest of Grissom's crew was curious as to how he knew sign language, I had guessed a member of his family was deaf. When he was signing at the end, I thought I saw something that made me think it was his Mom. It was a nice touch for CSI to not include an interpreter, closed captioning, or have Grissom speak as he was signing at the end. It excluded most of the hearing world, and, for a moment, realize what deaf people endure their whole life.

Danny in Yorktown, VA.

Endure? Everyone is different is some aspect. Perception often becomes reality though. Caucasoids are more prone to skin cancer because of the low levels of melanin compared to mongoloids and negroids. Are they suffering too? If everyone signed or was telepathic then the hearing would be the one enduring. I am not trying to put anyone down just let people know that you can always look at something differently if you want to.

Oh, please. You aren't one of those politically correct types that insist on calling "disabled" "differently abled" so as not to offend those who happen to be disabled and also happen to have thin skins, are you? You aren't seriously compairing a lack of melanin in the skin with the absence of hearing, are you? Deaf people ARE people, but deaf people also have a VERY serious DISABILITY, and there is no glossing over it. Hearing evolved because it is a seriously important survival trait. Lack of hearing means that something can sneak up behind you and make you dead. and a lack of hearing means that you must be much, much more careful in order to survive, both in the world of lions and tigers and bears and in the world of trucks and taxis and cars.

That being said, I saw the episode and had wished at the time that they would have subtitled it for the 90+ percent of us who don't know American Sign.

Thanks A, I was wondering what the final signing part was all about.

I disagreed with you, sorry. Those "deaf" (I never liked that word) have better sense of feel, see, taste, and smell. They got feel and see advantage in order to avoid any danger such as "trucks and taxis and cars". Of course, hearing people can see, but not in wide sight. They only see in focus, deaf people can see everything while they focus on one place. I've observed a deaf person managed to walk round the maze of chairs while chatting with friend without look where they're going. They can pick up vibration and able to pinpoint approximate direction. Only disadvantage that they couldn't hear people warns them whenever the danger is about to hit them such as falling object.

And people with no legs aren't disadvantaged because they get to roll around in these really cool chairs, and get great parking spaces and their own basketball teams! Yeah! And people who can't read? No problem, they can look at pictures and have others read to them! Think of how many friends that they can make! Does that make sense? NO, it doesn't. But it makes as much sense as your rationalizations. I have nothing against deaf people, but deafness is a DEFECT, a horrible limitation that they have to work hard to overcome, not just a "difference in abilities". And yes, people can not see "in wide sight". You can only see in the direction that your eyes are pointing, and light travels only in straight lines and not well through walls.

If only there were a sense that worked from all directions, worked through walls, and worked around corners. Now, THAT sense would be highly useful and vitally important. If only there were some magical sense that could do that. Oh, wait, there is one. It's called "hearing". People that don't have that sense are at a SEVERE disadvantage that they have to work very hard all of their lives to overcome. You find many, many types of animals that have secondarily lost their sight because they get along in their environments without it. Try to find some that lose their hearing.

I'd love to see you get in their shoes and understand how hard or easy for you to survive it. In other hand, deafness ISN'T only defect but there's many of them born with hearing and lost their hearing in several years to illness.

And I'm on your side, I don't really like deaf people, either. But I have knowledge of their limits, advantages, etc... but never protecting them.

I don't really like stupid people, and you would have to be one of them if that is the conclusion that you drew from my post. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt because, judging from the syntax and language of your posts English isn’t your native language and you are simply missing the meaning of the content of my message (I’m sure I couldn’t read a word of your language). I have NEVER said that I "don't like deaf people". I'm saying that anyone that thinks deafness isn't a disability, a drawback, a limitation, and a shortcoming is either painfully ignorant or a complete idiot. I have sympathy for people with disadvantages, and respect for their ability to survive those disadvantages, but I don't lie and pretend that their disadvantages don't exist. And that is EXACTLY what you are doing. VAST amounts of IMPORTANT moment to moment information are forever lost to the deaf, and all of those patronizing anecdotes about supernatural acuteness of the other senses doesn’t change that. I’m not saying that the DEAF are bad—I’m saying that DEAFNESS is bad, and should be given every effort to cure, not accepted as “differently abled”. Just as should be blindness, mental retardation, progeria, multiple sclerosis, and any number of other genetic, developmental or environmental damage that people must endure.

[Edited by Darren Garrison on 04-24-01 at 09:40 PM]

Ummmmm,

I think the thing Nightflyer was saying was correct and Avid Fan just misinterpreted endure.

The director clearly wanted the viewers to see what it is like to be deaf. What it is like to not be able to understand what everyone is saying. That is why they even took away the closed captioning. For once it was speech that only deaf could hear instead of speech that everyone with hearing can hear.

[Edited by Alyoshka on 04-24-01 at 10:17 PM]

Thread has veered way off course. Closing.

randyc