my local newspaper claims, this was not invented by Winston Churchill, but on 19th July by the Belgian politician De Lavely, because it works in both languages. victoire in French and, vrijheid in Dutch. Any comments from our members in Belgium and The Neatherlands? Stefan.
I’ve never thought of Winston’s salute as ‘V’ for victory. Rather, I thought he was telling Hitler ‘where to go’…
It is covered on the wiki page... V sign - Wikipedia Although I guess it's a case of popularising and take-up and developing meanings... Curiously - for example - 1920's Tokyo Olympics... albeit - the context isn't particularly discussed - other than as a Japanese peace symbol... Although the examples there seem to be from much later... Japan The V sign, primarily palm-outward, is very commonly made by Japanese people, especially younger people, when posing for informal photographs, and is known as pīsu sain (ピースサイン, peace sign), or more commonly simply pīsu (ピース, peace). Peace or Victory etc ? And even back to English/Welsh archers...
