The Finger


Kittens today we are going to talk about something we all know,
everyone uses, always enjoys giving and never enjoys receiving, says
more with a simple gesture than most explainations ever can, is
universally known, doesn’t require a passport or ticket yet you can
use in any country on earth and will be recognized and has been used
by humanity long before Jesus walked the earth.

He probably even used it himself.


You do not have to say one word to make your point very well known
when you use it. It is possibly the greatest communication tool
mankind has ever produced and aside from fire, the wheel, concrete and
the printing press I truly believe it is one of our more perfect
infoulable inventions ever.

It should be in the Smithsonian Institute alongside Fonzies jacket.

I am talking about the allmighty FINGER.

You can’t confuse the finger for the “we’re number one” sign. Nobody
ever thinks you are pointing at them when you use it. It doesn’t mean
“hmm….let me think about that for a while” or “gee I hadn’t really
considered your opinion.”

Never in history has anyone ever confused getting the finger for “why
yes I would enjoy a bit of marmalade with my tea and scone.”

We all use it and nobody ever asks why we use it, or wonder where it
came from. Kind of like wondering how or why we wipe our asses with
bits of expensive really soft paper and not a pinecone, or just having
the dog take care of it for us.

Us humans do that a lot. We do things without wondering why or where
it came from.

So what is the real story about the finger and where it came from?

For that we are going to have to go back in time before Jesus walked
around (not just on water) annoying money changers and look to ancient

The finger or any gestures involving the middle finger, are thousands
Morris and colleagues note that the digitus infamis or digitus
impudicus (infamous or indecent finger) is mentioned several times in
we quickly turn up three references. Two are from the epigrammatist
put your middle finger out.”

Roman poets in general, could be pretty out there,
Papylus . . .”)

Suetonius, writing about Augustus Caesar, says the emperor “expelled
supplicants to kiss.

Another possible origin of this gesture can be found in the
first-century Mediterranean world, where extending the digitus
impudicus was one of many methods used to divert the ever present
threat of the evil eye, which is a look that is superstitiously
term also refers to the power attributed to certain persons, of

The idea that the term denotes causes many cultures to pursue
protective measures against it. The concept and its significance vary
widely among different cultures. The idea appears several times in
belief between many Mediterranean tribes and cultures: Classical
Greece probably learned this belief from Ancient Egypt, and later
passed it to Ancient Rome.


Isn’t anthropology fun Kittens? Not only do we get to learn things and
use our thinking bones, but the next time we use the finger to tell
some diabolical fool that he or she has displeased us, we can explain
to them where it comes from. Books are rather fun and chock full of
useful things aren’t they Kittens?

The ancient Romans used the finger to insult each other exactly the
same way we do today, and to protect themselves when somebody was a
jackass and gave them stink eye just as we still do to this day.

Humans spend a lot of time walking around bumping into each other and
generally acting foolishly without investigating why we do it. Many of
our goofy habits date back thousands of years and are as much a part
of who we are than we realize.

Thousands of years of both good and bad habits are exceptionally hard
to break. Considering that humans have been wandering around for
roughly 200 000 years and we have been giving each other the finger
for over 2 000 of them it really isn’t a great mystery that we don’t
know very much about ourselves or our habits.

For example, a couple of thousands of years ago in Roman times and you
had trail rage because some dork decided to cut you off with his
manure cart while trying to pass you in heavy traffic, would you have
given him the finger with your left or right hand?

You would use your right hand and not because you were right handed.
You would use it because just like they do in most parts of the world
today…..Romans drove on the left side.




Countries that became part of the British Empire adopted the British keep-left rule, although some have since changed. In Canada, the Maritime provinces and British Columbia initially drove on the left, but changed to the right in order to make border crossings to and from other provinces easier. Nova Scotia switched to driving on the right on 15 April 1923.


While you were giving the finger to a man on an oncoming horse in Roman times you may have wanted to pepper your sentiment with a few words. You know, to fully make your point. “Te futueo et caballum tuum” or”Te futueo et equum tuum” would have done nicely. It means screw you and the horse you rode in on, words still commonly used today.

Es scortum obscenus vilis, Es mundus excrementi, Cupis homines, Moecha Putida, Canis filius, Podex perfectus es, Futue te ipsum!, Stercorem pro cerebro habes, Caput tuum in ano est, Perite,Vacca stulta, Caput stercoris, Cupio te meam mentulam sugare, Matris futuor,Te odeo, interfice te cochleare, Stercus accidit, Hic puer est stultissimus omnium!, Non Gradus Anus Rodentum!, De gustibus non est disputandum, Tum podem extulit horridulum, Potes meos suaviari clunes, Saltatrix tonsa, Quando podeces te regi eorum fecerunt?, Cacator Shitter Plenus stercoris es, Antiquis temporibus, nati tibi similes in rupibus ventosissimis exponebantur ad necem, Caesar si viveret, ad remum dareris, Derideo te!, Estne volumen in toga, an solum tibi libet me videre?, Hocine bibo aut in eum digitos insero?, Id imperfectum manet dum confectum erit, Morologus es!, Noli me vocare, Noli nothis permittere te terere, Puto vos esse molestissimos, Raptus regaliter and Tace atque abi are other examples of a few things you might have said and really pissed off the offender that are also used today and made Redd Foxx giddier than a Japanese school girl.

Unremarkably we have found these words and gestures far too handy to allow them to disappear from our vocabulary and universal consciousness. They are now and have been for thousands of years communication tools to allow us to convey a thought without any possibility of confusion or having to explain their meaning. You just cannot mistake the true message of the finger. It doesn’t matter of you like the message or not or agree with its usage. There is no other communication tool that has ever been created to equal its longevity and impact.


There are however lots of people who do not like the finger and what it means. they don’t like most things that offend them so they seek to control your words along with how and when you are allowed and not allowed to use them.

Rather than not use the finger or words because they do not like them and leave it at that, they want to make sure you don’t use them either. Not only that, they want to make sure you obey their every whim and want without much regard for your own because “they know what is better for you than you do.”

They don’t just rudely merge their manure cart into your lane giving you an excuse to give them the finger, they park it in front of you and make you either climb through their shit to get to where you were going, or try to sneak around them because manure carts are huge.

This is where the finger got a bad rap. Another tradition began in Roman times that we still all know about in one form or another, and one particular Roman who everybody has heard of but few know why or have completely missed the point as to why they know about him in the first place.

His name is Epicurious and wasn’t just a guy who liked a good meal and large portion of wine.











By now my Kittens I am hoping that this humble crudely assembled history lesson about traits and communication that date back thousands of years is beginning to seem rather familiar.

We are not that much different from the men and women of Roman times, we just have different stuff. There is nothing impressive about the age that we live in aside from the fact that we can LOL each other on mobile slave collars while driving around in cars and not on top of horse powered manure carts, although that is not to say that modern cars are much different either. It is just that now the manure is at the helm most of the time.

We are still lashed to forces comprised of inextricably linked forms of control. Religion and government are the same as they are now as they were in Roman times. They tax, they perform police and military actions, they occasionally feed the poor just enough to keep them alive and working poor and thus on their knees and they don’t like it when you give them the finger very much.

This is probably why the finger has survived as long as it has. We still need it because we still can’t behave ourselves enough to abandon the need for other people to govern us or even figure out what side of the road to walk on.

Until that happens we will still need the finger and the message it represents. This is why I like it so much. You can’t count on many things in life, but you can always count on somebody somewhere deserving The Finger.



~ by jeff on February 19, 2010.

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