Tineye tracks this image back to 2017 and Pimsleur is old school in every way (including factoids) so the info behind it could easily be a last minute drunken assignment from 50 years ago.
We're a lot more globalized and everyone has been exposed to the America "character" through mass media since then. My advice to American tourists is to stop comparing everything to "back home" and to realise you are constantly breaking taboos but your hosts are too polite to tell you. And to remember this when the similarily offend you.
Brit here, the V sign has two different meanings dependant on which side of the fingers is shown. If the palm side is shown then it's the same peace sign, if it's the other side then it's offensive.
I've been told it harkens back to Agincourt, where captured English archers had their drawing fingers cut off, so showing them would mean you're out to shoot some French.
I think they’re getting confused with a similar sign. If you do the peace sign sweeping the fingers upward but with the back of your hand facing the person then that means up yours. Or at least it did when I was younger.
peace sign is forward, up yours is backward. definitely slipped out of australian use in the last few decades at least, but people who were around for the pound might remember.
Yeah don't worry, this is pretty bs. The only one that's kinda accurate is number 4 but with outstretched fingers, not stuck together. And even that is slowly being fazed out in favor of the middle finger.
Out of curiosity, in which parts of Australia is the V sign insulting? I'd only recognise it as an insult because I grew up watching British sitcoms, I've never seen it used that way in person.
The V-sign, isn't the clue to make it with the palm facing away from you? The V-for victory sign is definitely a thing in Great Britain. Churchill somewhat famously did the sign incorrectly the first few times he used it.
IIRC in Straw Dogs, Dustin Hoffman plays an American who has come to rural England. He's greeted by two locals who give him the peace sign, then when he walks away they turn their hands around and it becomes the two-fingered salute.
