Tridents (was Re: FreeBSD Version Release numbers)

[Peter McGarvey]

* Mark Murray <mark at grondar.org> [2003-06-13 11:56:05 BST]:
> Terry Lambert writes:
> > (a "thumbs up" meant "death" and a "thumbs down" meant "mercy";
> 
> Other way round.

The way it was explained to me was the thumb was a sort of mime
representation of a dagger.  So it's fairly obvious that thumbs-down
represents "sheath your dagger", and thumbs-up meant "have some".

This may seem contrary to the modern usage, but on reflection the
meaning is still the same.  Thumbs-up indicating positive, Thumbs-down
indicating negative.  It's simply that modern society isn't quite a
blood-thirsty as the Romans, and so we've reversed our assumptions - we
assume gladiators were asking the question "do I let him live", whereas
they were really asking "do I kill him".

-- 
TTFN, FNORD

Peter McGarvey
Freelance FreeBSD Hacker
(will work for bandwidth)