Obama's Fickle Finger of Fate
Monday, October 13, 2014 at 7:33AM Isn't history more fun when you know something about it?
The History of the Middle Finger: Well, now......here's something you never knew before, and now you can send it on to your friends in the hope that they, too, will feel edified.
In Latin, the middle finger was the digitus impudicus, meaning the "shameless, indecent or offensive finger." In the 1st century AD, Persius the legendary founder of Mycenae and of the Perseid dynasty of Danaans, was the first of the heroes of Greek mythology who had superstitious female relatives concoct a charm with the "infamous finger" (digitus infamis).
The Greek philosopher Diogenes, 420 BC, is said to have stuck out his middle finger and exclaimed "This, for you, is the demagogue of the Athenians."
Baseball pitcher Old Hoss Radbourn giving the finger to cameraman, 1886. (Back row, far left). First known photo.
Linguist Jesse Sheidlower traces the gesture's development in the United States to the 1890s. According to anthropologist Desmond Morris, the gesture probably came to the United States via Italian immigrants. The first documented appearance of the finger in the United States was in 1886 when Old Hoss Radbourn, a baseball pitcher for the Boston Beaneaters, was photographed giving it to a member of the rival New York Giants.
True Story: Former Obama W.H. Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, now Chicago Mayor, as a teen he cut off his finger in a meat slicer.You could now say that Rahm could not get it up; however, his famously foul-mouth "F" words never ceased during any of his White House meetings. So, what he couldn't "sign" he could "say" - LOL!​
...And yew thought yew knew every "plucking" thing!
His Fickle Finger of Fate: And some politicians don't know anything about anything when they show what they are thinking about you without thinking! - Saay whaat??
Reader Comments (1)
And here I thought it was purely a late 20th Century gesture.
There is a scene in the movie Titanic where Rose and Jack, having escaped Cal's bodyguard, are descending in the elevator and Rose flips him the bird. At the time I refused to believe that gesture was known in 1912, but evidently it was in use a couple of decades before the turn of the century. Live and learn, thanks Don.