10 Ways You've Been Accidentally Insulting People Every Day

If you and your friends happen to be visiting Greece, you would do well to not wave at each other. The waving gesture is simply too similar to the palm open, hand facing out gesture, AKA the Mountza.

What could possibly be wrong with this gesture, you may ask? In ancient times, the gesture was believed to have been a curse, enhancing already verbal curses that were used against evil forces. Later on, criminals were paraded down the street, backwards, on a donkey. Their faces were smeared with cinder, and the gesture that the hand uses to do the smearing became an offensive gesture that is now used to be threatening or simply offensive like the middle finger.

This gesture has many other meanings throughout the world with various movements that emphasize some sort of negative connotation. In Northern America, for example, steadily holding out your palm with your arm extended and your face turned away means, "Talk to the hand, 'cause the face don't want to listen." This basically means, "shut up."

In Mexico, when the palm is out and steady or moving repeatedly towards the other person, it is a threat that the performer of the action will tell an authority figure about any mischief that the receiver might be up to. School children use it often to trick fellow students into behaving.