The Book of Tells (Peter Collett)[unlocked]

THE BOOK OF TELLS
If you visit Rome today, you'll find that the Romans use
the 'nod-shake' code. However, if you travel 200 kilometres
south, to Naples, you'll enter a region where the
locals use the nod for 'yes' and either the head-shake or
the head-toss for 'no'. 4 The head-toss consists of a single
upward movement of the head, which could easily be
confused with a brief nod that begins with an upward
movement. In order to avoid this confusion, southern
Italians initiate their head-nod with a downward movement.
In this respect they're similar to the Greeks, who use
a single, downward movement of the head for 'yes'.
Because their nod doesn't conflict with any other signals,
northern Italians don't have to worry about whether to
begin their nods with an upward or a downward movement.
In fact, when we look more closely, we find that
northerners initiate their nods in either direction. 5
So if you want to play the role of Professor Henry Higgins
and identify where Italians come from, you can simply
watch how they signal 'yes' with their head. If they start
with a downward movement they could be either from the
north or the south. But if they start with an upward movement,
they're almost certainly from the north.
Greeting Tells
The way that people greet each other also provides clues
to where they come from. The handshake, for example,
can differ cross-culturally in terms of who uses it, the situations
where it's employed, how long the hands are
clasped, how vigorously the hands are pumped, and in
many other ways. Handshakes in Africa are often executed
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