In The Sign of Three, both of John’s love interests give him a code word or phrase. His reaction to each of them is very different.
When John realizes that, ‘Beth’, is calling Mary, his reaction is literally the most pissed off he’s ever looked on the show. He is so annoyed, he literally looks at the camera like he’s on the Office and just holds that look. This is how bothered he is. As far as we can tell Mary is being adorable and inventive and he looks positively fed up with her. He then does a deep sigh and seems to have to will himself to get up from his chair. As he enters the kitchen he avoids eye contact and then forces a fake smile; he turns it on like a light, it’s totally synthetic. He’s trying really hard to be nice, there, despite finding this situation really annoying.
When Sherlock says his code phrase, John immediately becomes alert and gets ready to help. He is all in. Whatever Sherlock needs he is doing. He even stands to offer his services. This is so natural to John, to be there when Sherlock needs. This is John in his element.
Now, while in the story we can say that Sherlock’s code is of life or death importance whereas Mary’s is just a trivial, wedding playing related matter, the point is that we have this parallel about codes words. His response to a fairly easy issue with Mary is to be more annoyed than he’s ever looked and his response to Sherlock is that he’s ready to immediately do anything for him.
By the beginning of HLV we can see that John’s marriage is in trouble, for sure. But, even here, before the wedding, I think that we see him being way too annoyed with Mary. At this point in the story she’s done nothing but be cute and supportive, we have no reason to think that John would be this annoyed with her. John is sending us clues as to his unhappiness with Mary even before it becomes really obvious.
Washoe was a chimp who was taught sign language.
One of Washoe’s caretakers was pregnant and missed work for many weeks after she miscarried. Roger Fouts recounts the following situation:
“People who should be there for her and aren’t are often given the cold shoulder—her way of informing them that she’s miffed at them. Washoe greeted Kat [the caretaker] in just this way when she finally returned to work with the chimps. Kat made her apologies to Washoe, then decided to tell her the truth, signing “MY BABY DIED.” Washoe stared at her, then looked down. She finally peered into Kat’s eyes again and carefully signed “CRY”, touching her cheek and drawing her finger down the path a tear would make on a human (Chimpanzees don’t shed tears). Kat later remarked that one sign told her more about Washoe and her mental capabilities than all her longer, grammatically perfect sentences.“ [23]
Washoe herself lost two children; one baby died shortly after birth of a heart defect, the other baby, Sequoyah, died of a staph infection at two months of age.
more about Washoe:
after the death of her children, researchers were determined to have Washoe raise a baby and brought in a ten month chimpanzee named Loulis. one of the caretakers went to Washoe’s enclosure and signed “i have a baby for you.” Washoe became incredibly excited, yelling and swaying from side to side, signing “baby” over and over again. then she signed “my baby.”
the caretaker came back with Loulis, and Washoe’s excitement disappeared entirely. she refused to pick Loulis up, instead signing “baby” apathetically; it was clear that the baby she thought she was getting was going to be Sequoyah. eventually Washoe did approach Loulis, and by the next day the two had bonded and from then on she was utterly devoted to him.
*information shamelessly paraphrased from When Elephants Weep by Jeffrey Masson.
Even more interestingly, after Washoe and Loulis bonded, she started teaching him American Sign Language the same way that human parents teach their children language. It only took Loulis eight days to learn his first sign from Washoe, and aside from the seven that his human handlers learned around him, he learned to speak in ASL just as fluently as Washoe and was able to communicate with humans in the same way she could.
now if y’all don’t think this is the tightest shit you can get outta my face
