Naughty Ancient Greeks invented the “middle finger”. Too

The so-called “middle finger” may finally be another invention of the ancient Greeks. It was about 2,500 years ago that the “naughty” Greeks developed a phallic gesture to insult, mock and literally push each other to the edge.

If you’ve ever done the middle finger gesture then you have something in common with the ancient Greeks, says cnn international on a post published on January 22.

It was about 2,500 years ago that the “naughty” Greeks developed a phallic gesture to insult, mock and literally push each other to the edge. While raising the middle finger today clearly expresses an unspoken curse, in classical society, historians say the middle finger was more of an extreme sexual reference.

The middle finger has since become a famous emoji. Here’s how the middle finger ended up being the most obscene finger on the human hand.

The cheeky Greeks “probably relied on the use of the middle finger to represent an erect penis,” wrote Max Nelson, who teaches courses on classical civilizations at the University of Windsor in Ontario, Canada, in a 2017 paper on the origins of the gesture.

The History Of Giving Someone The Middle Finger

Proudly pointing the middle finger was usually a joke in ancient Greece, an insult or a sexual suggestion, Nelson and other classical researchers argue.

Some sources from ancient Greece state that the middle fingers were used in warfare to pierce people’s faces from the nostrils down.

The gesture eventually made its way to ancient Rome, where the locals probably called it “digitus impudicus” – the indecent digit. The Roman historian Suetonius reported that the emperor Caligula forced his subjects to kiss his middle finger – according to anthropologist and leading historian of the middle finger Desmond Morris, this was a derogatory gesture representing the ruler’s member.

Where did the middle finger come from?

Greek playwright Aristophanes was also supposedly a fan of the gesture, referring to the “long finger” in many of his plays.

In his comedy “The Clouds,” written in 419 B.C., a caricature of Socrates attempts to instruct the debtor Strepsiades about poetic meter. Strepsiades makes a crude joke about using a different finger to create rhythm. Translators of the text usually conclude that Strepsiades gesticulates with his middle finger (or, in some translations, reveals his privates) to refer to masturbation, said Nelson. Whatever the intent, the Socrates character responds with disgust.

The popularity of the gesture declined, but did not disappear entirely, during the Middle Ages, likely due to the growing influence of the Catholic Church and its ubiquitous disapproval of sexual gestures, the researchers concluded. Windsor said the middle finger landed in the U.S. with Italian immigrants in the late 19th century.

When the middle finger grew in popularity once again, it became known as a wordless version of the “flipping the bird” used by the British and other Europeans.

The gesture is perhaps even more offensive today, notes cnn.com listing some examples as in modern society the middle finger has become symbol of a merely “FCK YOU!” by an angry person often at the breaking point.

PS I had truly difficulties, I wasn’t sure if to put the post in category CULTURE “Archaeology” or SOCIETY “Lifestyle”.