The middle finger: More than words can say

Up yours. Screw off. You suck. Shove it. Get lost. But mostly: Eff you. These are the unmistakable meanings of the simple, crude, and highly effective middle finger gesture. It can be delivered as a sign of anger, frustration, disrespect, derision, rebellion, rejection, or general insult, and may be displayed forcefully, slyly, ironically, gleefully, or jokingly. The use of the middle finger as a rude expression dates back thousands of years; it may be the “[most ubiquitous and longest lived]( insulting gesture in the world” (pdf), maintaining its shocking and controversial nature long after whatever symbolism actually inspired it faded into history. It’s also a truly international insult (although people in certain countries and regions have different ways of using their anatomy to express something anatomically impossible). Let’s put our finger on the pulse. 🐦 [Tweet this!]( 🌐 [View this email on the web]( [Quartz Daily Obsession] The middle finger February 27, 2020 Bird is the word --------------------------------------------------------------- Up yours. Screw off. You suck. Shove it. Get lost. But mostly: Eff you. These are the unmistakable meanings of the simple, crude, and highly effective middle finger gesture. It can be delivered as a sign of anger, frustration, disrespect, derision, rebellion, rejection, or general insult, and may be displayed forcefully, slyly, ironically, gleefully, or jokingly. The use of the middle finger as a rude expression dates back thousands of years; it may be the “[most ubiquitous and longest lived]( insulting gesture in the world” (pdf), maintaining its shocking and controversial nature long after whatever symbolism actually inspired it faded into history. It’s also a truly international insult (although people in certain countries and regions have different ways of using their anatomy to express something anatomically impossible). Let’s put our finger on the pulse. 🐦 [Tweet this!]( 🌐 [View this email on the web]( Brief history [419 BC:]( An Aristophanes play includes a character who gestures with his middle finger. [300s BC:]( Greek philosopher Diogenes allegedly gives the finger to a crowd waiting to see the statesman and orator Demosthenes. [1415:]( According to legend, the finger is displayed at the Battle of Agincourt (though this has been debunked). [1886:]( The middle finger is captured for the first time on camera in the US, displayed by baseball player Charles “Old Hoss” Radbourn in a team photo. [1928:]( The Academy Award-nominated Speedy features silent film star Harold Lloyd giving himself the finger in a funhouse mirror, likely the earliest known appearance in a motion picture. [1968:]( Crewmembers of the USS Pueblo, a US Navy ship attacked by North Korea, ruin propaganda prisoner-of-war photos taken of them by giving the finger. [1969:]( Singer Johnny Cash is photographed giving the finger during his famous San Quentin State Prison set. [1974:]( MAD magazine replaces its usual cover image featuring the character Alfred E. Neuman with a hand extending the middle finger; the controversial edition becomes a collector’s item. [1976:]( US vice president Nelson Rockefeller flashes the finger at a group of student hecklers on the campaign trail, giving rise to it becoming known for a time as “the Rockefeller gesture.” [1995:]( Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei begins a series of photographs, taken over two decades, featuring him giving his left finger to various cultural landmarks, starting with Tiananmen Square. [1998:]( The book The Finger: A Comprehensive Guide to Flipping Off is published by the indie ‘zine Ooze. [2015:]( A middle finger icon is officially added to the emoji lexicon. Image via Sanrio.com The way we 🖕 now Our gestures, ourselves --------------------------------------------------------------- Some hand gestures are iconic—they are meant to mimic a specific thing or action. Think of the gesture you make by folding your first three fingers down, extending your thumb and pinkie and holding that to your ear. It means “call me,” and it’s a clear representation of a phone. Or, picture most of the gestures that accompany the children’s song “Itsy Bitsy Spider.” Other gestures are emblematic—they’re abstractions, like a 👍 or a 👌, and not directly representational. Which is the middle finger? Anthropologist Desmond Morris believes it’s iconic, a representation of a very specific thing. “The middle finger is the penis and the curled fingers on either side are the testicles,” [he told the BBC](. “By doing it, you are offering someone a phallic gesture. It is saying, ‘this is a phallus’ that you’re offering to people, which is a very primeval display.” But Benjamin Bergen, director of the Language and Cognition Lab at the University of California, San Diego, [did a study in 2019]( to examine whether modern bird flippers actually associate the digit with the other body part. Using another common, iconic gesture which the study refers to as the “finger bang” as a control, Bergen found that 🖕did not make test subjects think of a penis, but 👉👌 did. “This suggests that the Middle-Finger no longer activates thoughts of penises in the minds of contemporary American English speakers,” Bergen writes. “Emblematic gestures with iconic origins may undergo historical change not just in the functions they serve but also in the effects they have on the minds of people who use them.” Quotable “It seems like such an arbitrary, ridiculous thing to just pick a finger, and you show it to the person. It’s a finger. What does it mean? Someone shows me one of their fingers, and I’m supposed to feel bad. Is that the way it’s supposed to work?” —[Comedian Jerry Seinfeld]( AP Photo/Ted S. Warren Membership Risky business --------------------------------------------------------------- You need to take risks to succeed, but most people are bad at it. That’s because risk is not just about avoiding danger; it’s also about maximizing your reward. [To watch our newest video series, RISK]( and learn how to maximize your rewards, sign up for a seven-day trial to Quartz membership. Million-dollar question Is it ever illegal to flip the bird? --------------------------------------------------------------- It depends on where you are and the circumstances. Ira P. Robbins’s law-review article [“Digitus Impudicus: The Middle Finger and the Law”]( (pdf) concludes that, in America, not-uncommon convictions involving the gesture are almost always overturned. In 2019 a US federal court [defended the right]( after a woman was stopped for speeding, given a lesser citation, then pulled over a second time and cited for speeding again after she flipped off the cop. Elsewhere the bird really doesn’t fly. In Germany, insults are illegal, and [hundreds of thousands of cases]( including some for the Stinkefinger, are brought every year, though almost always dismissed. France has a similar law, which landed a motorist in trouble when he flipped off a speed camera (his lawyers argued that it’s [not illegal to insult a machine](. Why are they so uptight? As legal scholar James Q. Whitman writes, “Rude behavior is regarded in both countries as an [assault on the personal honor]( of its target, in a way that Americans would find difficult to comprehend” (pdf). Pop quiz The Latin term for the middle finger, digitus impudicus, means... Number onePhallic symbolMonkey penisUnchaste or shameless finger Correct. Even back in ancient Rome, giving the finger was crude, rude, and sexual. Incorrect. it is widely considered phallic in nature, and male squirrel monkeys do sometimes gesture aggressively with their erect penises. And it has been mistaken as meaning “number one.” If your inbox doesn’t support this quiz, find the solution at bottom of email. Have a friend who would enjoy our Obsession with The middle finger? [ [Forward link to a friend](mailto:?subject=Thought you'd enjoy.&body=Read this Quartz Daily Obsession email – to the email – Germana/STAR MAX/IPx Person of interest Queen of birds --------------------------------------------------------------- Many famous people have been captured flipping off, including politicians, actors, and athletes. But when actress Carrie Fisher died at the end of 2016, several noted that [she was photographed]( giving the one-fingered salute [a remarkable number of times](. Fun fact! Giving the finger became widely known as “flipping the bird” [in the 1960s](. In 1967, in possibly the first known use of the phrase in print, a music magazine article [described the Grateful Dead as “flipping the bird”]( to the audience. Giphy Listed International variations --------------------------------------------------------------- The middle finger is not universal—around the world, [other gestures]( carry a [similar meaning](. What’s seen as a positive thumbs-up in the US, for example, is used in Mediterranean countries as the equivalent of the raised middle digit. So if you find yourself wanting to insult someone nonverbally, just be sure you’re speaking the right local body language. Here are a few global variations on “fuck you”: 🇬🇧 Great Britain: palm-back V-sign 🇪🇺 Europe: forearm jerk, raising a fist with a bent arm while smacking that arm with the other hand 🇧🇷 Brazil: 👌the English language okay sign is anything but in Brazil 🇬🇷 Greece: hand up, palm out, known as the moutza 🇫🇷 France: under-chin hand flick 🇮🇳 India: under-front teeth thumb flick, known as the cuti 🇹🇷 Turkey: the fig—pushing the thumb between the first and second fingers of a closed fist 👯 Ross Geller nation: on the TV show Friends [tapping two fists horizontally]( was a running gag YouTube Watch this! One cinematic digit --------------------------------------------------------------- The middle finger, and creative ways to deploy it, has been featured prominently in numerous movies and TV shows. Multiple supercuts exist on YouTube, including this one, set to the Lily Allen song “Fuck You.” take me down this 🐰 hole! Let’s review: The middle finger most likely once represented a penis, but is no longer directly associated with phallic imagery in the minds of most English speakers. Its delivery can be hilarious, but it’s also taboo, and even illegal in some places. So why do we even have words and gestures that are off-limits? Though it’s produced for children, [the podcast But Why? answers this question, about the middle finger, and swear words of all kinds]( with tremendous nuance. It’s also a safe listen for all ages and sensitivity levels. For an even deeper dive, Benjamin Bergen, the cognitive scientist who determined that we no longer see a penis when we see a middle finger, wrote a book called What the F: What Swearing Reveals About Our Language, Our Brains, and Ourselves. He says that for young people [slurs based on gender, race, and sexual identity]( are far more offensive than profanity. Or check out the work of Gershon Legman, [“self-taught scholar of dirty jokes.”]( James Gubb Poll Who have you secretly flipped off? [Click here to vote]( Your spouse or romantic partnerYour bossYour motherA bad driverI’d never do that!😇 💬let's talk! In yesterday’s poll about [TikTok]( 46% of you said the sentiment “Look. I didn’t think I’d spend hours ‘researching’ ironic meme compilations, but here we are” resonates with you, while 42% think “It’s a terrifying wasteland of nonsense memes for youths,” and 12% of you think it’s just cursed. 🤔 [What did you think of today’s email?](mailto:obsession%2Bfeedback@qz.com?cc=&subject=Thoughts%20about%20the%20middle%20finger%20&body=) 💡 [What should we obsess over next?](mailto:obsession%2Bideas@qz.com?cc=&subject=Obsess%20over%20this%20next.&body=) 🎲 [Show me a random Obsession]( Today’s email was written by [Holly Ojalvo]( and [Annaliese Griffin]( and edited and produced by [Whet Moser](. 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