The finger

Diogenes, pictured by Gérôme with the large jar in which he lived; when strangers at the inn were expressing their wish to catch sight of the great orator Demosthenes, Diogenes is said to have stuck out his middle finger and exclaimed "This, for you, is the demagogue of the Athenians." A video of the figure on the right has been made. In Latin, the middle finger was the digitus impudicus, meaning the "shameless, indecent or offensive finger". In the 1st century AD, Persius had superstitious female relatives concoct a charm with the "infamous finger" (digitus infamis) and "purifying spit" while in the Satyricon, an old woman uses dust, spit and her middle finger to mark the forehead before casting a spell. The poet Martial has a character in good health extend "the indecent one" toward three doctors. In another epigram, Martial wrote: "Laugh loud, Sextillus, at whoever calls you a cinaedus and extend your middle finger." Juvenal, through synecdoche, has the "middle nail" cocked at threatening Fortuna. The indecent finger features again in a mocking context in the Priapeia, a collection of poems relating to the phallic god Priapus. In Late Antiquity, the term "shameless finger" is explained in the Etymologiae of Isidore of Seville with reference to its frequent use when accusing someone of a "shameful action." ==Modern era==

United States baseball pitcher Charles "Old Hoss" Radbourn pictured giving the finger to cameraman, 1886. First known photograph of the gesture. Use of this gesture in public, while vulgar, is legal, as it is considered expressive communication protected by the First Amendment. In some cases, offended police officers who have had the insulting gesture displayed to them have stopped, ticketed, or arrested people for doing so. However, it is neither a crime, nor even probable cause to stop a person, and a police officer who does so violates "a clearly established constitutional right", and does not have qualified immunity if they do so, which means they can be sued for monetary damages for the unlawful stop and/or arrest. Cruise-Gulyas v. Minard 918 F.3d 494 (2019). Canada In 2023, in a ruling issued February 24 regarding a Canadian man who was accused of criminal harassment and uttering threats, Quebec court Judge Dennis Galiatsatos wrote, "To be abundantly clear, it is not a crime to give someone the finger", and, "Flipping the proverbial bird is a God-given, Charter-enshrined right that belongs to every red-blooded Canadian. It may not be civil, it may not be polite, it may not be gentlemanly. Nevertheless, it does not trigger criminal liability." The accused man was acquitted. Early appearance in films During a wedding sequence in one of Alfred Hitchcock's silent films, The Ring (1927), a misunderstanding results in the ringbearer giving the finger to another member of the wedding party, to comedic effect. In the film Speedy (1928), Harold Lloyd's character gives himself the finger into a distorting mirror at Luna Park, about 25 minutes into the film. ==Political and military use==

The gesture has been involved in political events. During the incident, in which an American ship was captured by North Korea, the captured American crewmembers often discreetly gave the finger in staged photo ops, undermining the North Koreans' use of the images in their propaganda. The North Koreans, ignorant of what the gesture meant, were at first told by the prisoners that it was a "Hawaiian good luck sign", similar to the shaka. When the guards finally figured things out, the crewmembers were subjected to extremely severe beatings. The gesture itself has also been nicknamed the "Trudeau salute". Former president George W. Bush gave the finger to the camera at an Austin production facility during his term as governor of Texas, saying it was "just a one-finger victory salute." Anthony Weiner gave the finger to reporters after leaving his election headquarters the night he lost the 2013 primary election for Mayor of New York City. During the campaign for the 2013 German federal election, the leading candidate of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, Peer Steinbrück controversially gave the finger in a photo interview with Süddeutsche Zeitung's Magazin supplement. During World War II, the 91st Bombardment Group of the United States Army Air Forces referred to the gesture as the "rigid digit" salute. It was used in a more jocular manner, to suggest an airman had committed an error or infraction; the term was a reference to British slang terms for inattentiveness (i.e. "pull your finger out (of your bum)"). The middle finger has been involved in judicial hearings. An appellate court in Hartford, Connecticut ruled in 1976 that gesturing with the middle finger was offensive, but not obscene, after a police officer charged a 16-year-old with making an obscene gesture when the student gave the officer the middle finger. Černý had also mounted a middle finger on a pink former Soviet tank from the Monument to Soviet Tank Crews in 1991. In 2011–2012, the pink tank with the finger was displayed again on a barge on the Vltava. In 2017 Juli Briskman gave the finger to the motorcade of Donald Trump as it drove past her while bicycling, and a photograph that went viral forced her to resign from her job as a marketing executive. However, the notoriety may have been favorable in her 2019 election to the board of supervisors for Loudoun County, Virginia. featuring a Ukrainian soldier in battle dress flipping off the Moskva On February 24, 2022, the first day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Russian missile cruiser Moskva attacked Snake Island as part of the 2022 Snake Island campaign. The Ukrainian border guard Roman Hrybov's last communication with the warship was "Russian warship, go fuck yourself". This was memorialized on a set of Ukrainian commemorative postage stamps on April 12 with the text "Russian warship, fuck you!" and a drawing of a Ukrainian soldier presenting the middle finger to the Russian cruiser. In January 2026, U.S. President Donald Trump was filmed raising his middle finger and mouthing "fuck you" toward a heckler who had shouted "pedophile protector" during a visit to the Ford River Rouge complex in Dearborn, Michigan. A White House spokesperson described the response as appropriate. ==In popular culture==

The use of the middle finger has become pervasive in popular culture. The band Cobra Starship released a song called "Middle Finger", and released a music video that showed people giving the finger. José Paniagua was released by the Chicago White Sox after giving the middle finger to an umpire; he never played in the majors again. river under Prague Castle from the Czech sculptor David Černý to president Miloš Zeman before the 2013 parliamentary election in the Czech Republic The NME Awards, an annual music awards show in the UK, uses an extended middle finger design in the trophy handed out to the winners. Many musical artists, including Madonna, Lady Gaga, Eminem, Ariana Grande, Katy Perry, and Adele have publicly made the gesture. The finger is included in Unicode as , part of the Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs block. The media sometimes refers to the gesture as being mistaken for an indication of "we're number one", typically indicated with a raised index finger. Ira Robbins, a law professor, believes the finger is no longer an obscene gesture. In 2018, a large wooden sculpture of a hand giving the middle finger, titled The Finger, was erected in Westford, Vermont by local Ted Pelkey as a form of protest against the local development review board for denying him a building permit. While WCAX described the public reaction to The Finger as "mixed", The Boston Globe reported Westfield residents being mostly amused by the sculpture and several proposing capitalizing on its popularity. Pelkey initially said he would retire The Finger to the garage or his living room and replace it with a peace sign if he received his permit, but later said the sculpture was "awesome" and "a statement made to our rights as Americans" and he would not remove it. ==Similar gestures==

In the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand, the V sign, "two-fingered salute" or "the fingers", when given with back of the hand towards the recipient, serves a similar purpose. According to a Royal Shakespeare Company synopsis of the play Henry V, a "two-fingered salute" appeared in the Macclesfield Psalter of (in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge), "being made by a glove in the psalter's marginalia". George H. W. Bush, former President of the United States, accidentally made the gesture while on a diplomatic trip to Australia. This comes from a childish name of the middle finger, o-nii-san-yubi ("big-brother finger"), as opposed to o-tō-san-yubi ("dad finger", the thumb), o-kā-san-yubi ("mom finger", the index), o-nee-san-yubi ("big-sister finger", the ring finger) and aka-chan-yubi ("baby finger", the pinky). The equivalent words for sisters are expressed with the pinky. In the Japanese manual syllabary, the middle finger (with the front of the hand facing forward) stands for the kana せ (which, incidentally, is also an archaic word for "brother"). ==See also==