Why Do We Use The Middle Finger?

本站添加: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]Ah.

[00:00:03]Hey, [ __ ] you. I'm not actually mad at you, but have you ever wondered why do we do this? I mean, did you know it started off as representing a massive hard [ __ ] What about other gestures like shame on you or huh? How do you all what's up? I'm Carson Wylie. I'm a linguist and yes, we also study nonverbal communication. So, I'm going to teach you where some of these gestures come from, how they got their meanings, and some related linguistics facts along the way. Starting with the middle finger, you might have heard a popular story that it comes from medieval England and war with France and cutting off the fingers of Bowman, but that's not true. It's actually much older than that. The Romans had a term for it called digitus impudicus, which means impudent digit or offensive finger. And yes, let's not beat around the bush, pun intended, it does represent an erect penis, which is probably where it started its offensive meaning. Probably the oldest record of this being used is in a play from Aristophanes that was from 419 or 423 BC. And it likely became an insult because ancient Greece viewed large penises as a sign of stupidity. Uh someone who was ruled by lust or animal instincts, someone who easily gives in to temptation, whereas smaller penises represented man who was led by intellect, who could keep his impulses under control. That's also why ancient Greek male statues tend to have small flaccid penises because that was the aesthetic preference. It was likely brought to the US through Italian immigrants and through baseball we get this, which is probably the first photo of someone giving the finger. The man doing it is Charles Radbourn, a pitcher for the Boston Beaneaters, who eventually became the Atlanta Braves, in a photo with his team and the New York Giants. From ancient Greece to Rome to Italy to Italian Americans and American baseball, there you go, the middle finger. Next is this, which is shame on you or shame in general. It might have started in Europe, but is now used there less than in North America or at least not used in the same way, and even here we already don't use it too much anymore. I'm not sure I've ever seen someone my age or younger use it casually. Have any of you? Uh at least I can't remember anyone in my life who has used it. I didn't find any solid sources on the potential origin, mostly just forums of people discussing it or wondering about it. I've seen some stories that say it represents whittling a stick or peeling a carrot, some kind of embarrassing or menial task like that, although I don't find that to be too convincing because I don't think those activities are really that shameful. Uh others say it represents a parent's hand hitting a child's wrist or just friction in general. Uh but honestly, I didn't find much better info than that, nor anything about when or exactly where it was first recorded.

[00:02:43]Similarly, I didn't find a lot of great sources on the finger wag no gesture. I see a lot of people talking about Dikembe Mutombo who used it in basketball, but he obviously didn't create it. As a matter of fact, when people talk about the origin of him using it in sports, they mention that he got it when he was a child from his mother. So, obviously its origins come before him, but nobody explains it any further than that.

[00:03:08]Um and a lot of the sources that talk about are actually the same ones that were kind of just spitballing ideas about the shame on you symbol. Some say it was used by pagan priests in Rome to express displeasure and was later prohibited by Christian authorities and came back during the Enlightenment where it just meant anger and eventually became no. The okay hand sign has long been a part of mudra hand signs from South Asian religious and spiritual practices. If you've practiced yoga, you might have seen this.

[00:03:35]Uh but has also been used for a few centuries in Britain to express approval or well-being and became associated with the word okay in the mid-1800s USA. And the US is the origin of the word okay itself, which now might be the most widely used word across all of the world's languages. There's some other words like taxi that might also qualify there, but okay started as a variation of all correct, first recorded in the Boston Morning Post in 1839, which means it was already in use before then and then popularized by President Martin Van Buren's presidential campaign in 1840.

[00:04:09]He was nicknamed Old Kinderhook for his hometown and used the abbreviation OK for his campaign. Another fun fact about President Van Buren is that his first language was Dutch and is said to have had a foreign accent even as president.

[00:04:22]And finally, huh?

[00:04:24]How did this come to mean what? I could not find any information about the origin of this. All I can find are sources showing its use in ASL where it looks like this, which is pretty much how people who don't know ASL use it to mean huh? What? You see it in memes all the time. And the sound, the word huh, is nearly universal, which is a true thing. Linguistically, it's because those are some of the easiest sounds to make. These front mid to open vowels are just very easy for people to produce.

[00:04:55]So, it's a very simple way for people to quickly ask for repetition if they didn't understand something. Not necessarily the exact same as English huh, but somewhere in this group of vowels. While we're looking up the hand gesture specifically, of people talk about different hand symbols that are used to represent huh in different languages. For example, Italian like this or other language might be like that, but I cannot find anything about the history of this specific gesture that I use in my culture or where it first appeared. Unfortunately, since gestures aren't spoken words and therefore often don't get written down, their origins are just a lot less well-known. And on that terrible disappointment, it's time to end. Thank you so much for watching. If you have any more info on any of these gestures, please let us know in the comments. Or if there's more you would like to see me explain in a future video, let me know.

[00:05:44]And if you'd like to support me so I can go back to the detailed deep dive videos like the one I did on the literacy crisis claims, you can support me on Patreon, which is linked in the description or in my bio, where this video was uploaded early and ad-free, just like any future long-form videos will be as well.

[00:06:00]But if that's too much for you, just liking and sharing this video with people who are going to want to watch it can do just as much. So, until next time, remember, every accent, every dialect, every language, the way everybody speaks around the world, no matter what they look or sound like, are all equally valid and beautiful.

[00:06:16]Goodbye.