![]() After 23 years, I am horrified at the prospect of the Communists returning to power and of Mr. Cerny told The New York Times, “This finger is aimed straight at the castle politics. Similarly, Czech sculptor David Cerny sent a larger-than-life purple middle finger sculpture down the Vltava River-which runs past the president’s palace-in a not-so-subtle message to Czech President Milos Zeman when he took office in 2013. A bloody fight ensues between the squads-all because of a thumb. In Elizabethan times, putting the tip of one’s thumb behind their top front teeth and flicking it out was tantamount to the middle finger, and at least in the case of Romeo and Juliet, was as good as spouting some serious fightin’ words. In the play’s first act and scene, Sampson of House Capulet noticed a couple of no-good Montagues walking around, and bites his thumb at them as a sign of disrespect. Thumb-biting in Romeo and Juliet veritably launches the star-crossed lovers’ tragedy. In fact, it was a thumb that caused a lot of trouble in Shakespeare’s day. ![]() Though sometimes, giving the finger didn’t actually mean the middle finger. The nod to anal rape isn’t entirely different (though more directly violent) from the “fuck you” meaning it has today. The Latin phrase for the middle finger digitus impudicus literally means “unchaste finger,” and the gesture was a symbol for anally penetrating men. In ancient Rome, giving the finger was a physical threat. When Diogenes heard mention of statesman and orator Demosthenes, he gave a middle finger and cried out facetiously, “There goes the demagogue of Athens!” Diogenes was not a fan of Demosthenes, and wasn’t shy about expressing his disdain verbally and manually. fucking) and it was used, as it is today, to express displeasure toward someone.ĭiogenes Laertius, a classical-era biographer of Greek philosophers, was said to have tossed a middle finger or two in his day. The ever-subversive ancient Greeks used their middle fingers to symbolize sex (not “making love” sex, the rude, derogatory kind, a.k.a. Centuries earlier, Aristotle argued that language was humanity’s defining characteristic, but Cushing said the way we use our hands is even more significant than what comes out of our mouths.įlipping people off is an act as old as the Pantheon. Cushing contends that hand gestures are what make humans distinct as a race. In 1892, anthropologist Frank Hamilton Cushing published “Manual Concepts: A Study of The Influence of Hand-Usage on Culture Growth” in The American Anthropologist. When executed just right, throwing a middle finger (or two) in the air can be one of the most satisfying feelings in the world-and it’s actually a sign of protest and defiance that’s been around for centuries. Whether you call it the finger, the bird, or the one finger salute, there are many names for the universal sign meaning, “Fuck you.” It’s undeniable that there’s an art to giving the finger the timing, angle, and duration of your gesture can make or break how effectively you land an insult.
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