Body language

Body language is hard to write about without overrating it: it proves nothing, it accompanies. As descriptive vocabulary it is useful all the same — rehuir la mirada, tensar la mandíbula, el gesto contenido say in three words what would otherwise take a paragraph. This list describes; it does not interpret. The word to carry away is el dedo, in el dedo índice acusador and in tamborilear con los dedos. One Spanish word covers what English splits three ways: the fingers of the hand, the toes of the foot — el dedo del pie — and the thumb, which English takes out of the count and names separately. That is why a hand has four fingers in English and five dedos in Spanish, and neither language is miscounting.