'arms akimbo'

'arms akimbo'

During a recent gathering of old classmates, the phrase "arms akimbo" was brought up.

It was further elaborated with amusement by the classmates with respet to its meaning.

'arms akimbo', according to Collins English Dictionary, means "with hands on hips and elbows projecting outwards".

The 'arms akimbo' stance generally indicates that combination of impatience and defiance
which is these days called 'attitude'. That is well exemplified in this design for a statue
of the US politician Barbara Jordan.                                                    - The Phrase Finder -


From "Google Images"

It reminded me of a writing I once posted on my own blog "Then Yehtze File":

Wednesday, January 8, 2014
"Did You Have My Permission To ....... ?"





















The lady with her arms "akimbo" is intelligent, confident and authoritative.

"Did you have my permission to take picture of me?"

The other day, JHC, a classmate of mine from the NTUMC68 Class, called me just to assure that I was able to lock into the NTUMC73 Class Journal that was written by more than 40 classmates from their class. It was a rare 集體創作 from a single class.

While our conversation continued, the subject we talked about was then switched to our own class. Our chat lasted for hours.

Among many other things, he refreshed our past college campus life, that made me realized I had missed a lot of opportunities to participate class activities, both on and off the campus.

It has been said that "到北京才知道官小, 到上海才知道樓小, ………. ". I said: "上了台大醫科才知道頭腦不好."

During my seven years at NTUMC, I had never been a very confident person in the class. I was always afraid to talk to those classmates who were elite, super smart, or those whom I considered to be “intimidating”. As a result, I had missed many of the class activities.

I was also a very shy person when I had to deal with girls. I confessed to JHC that I did not recall I had ever carried on a conversation with any girl, not even one, in our class during that seven-year period of time. I simply did not know how to express, or what to say, in front of a girl.

JHC was even amazed when I told him an old tale about my encounter with a particular girl in the class.

One day in the classroom, before the class began, everybody was quietly preparing for the class. I saw ACW, another classmate, carrying a small movie camera in his hand, as he had planned to take a few shots of the class activities.

For my curiosity, he kindly let me look at his “toy”, which was considered to be a luxury item then. I held it and pretended to shoot. I did it randomly at the entire class.

As soon as I handed it back to ACW, there came HW, who quickly approached me with her hands locked to both sides of her waist, "arms akimbo", saying: " Did you have my permission to take picture of me?".      I was stunned and frozen in time. I felt my face flush! I was simply embarrassed and perhaps being intimidated as well. I did not know what to say, or how to respond.

"Did You Have My Permission To ....... ?"

That was half a century ago.


Yeh Tze