Digitus Impudicus: The Middle Finger and the Law - Wired

2008] Digitus Impudicus 1413
I. BACKGROUND
A. The Origin of the Middle Finger Gesture
Scant evidence exists regarding the origin of the middle finger
gesture. According to one colorful legend, the gesture first appeared
during the Battle of Agincourt, France in 1415. 52 During the battle,
French soldiers threatened to cut off the middle and index fingers of
captured English bowmen, because the bowmen used those two
fingers to draw their longbows. 53 The English called the act of using a
longbow “plucking the yew,” as the bows were made from the English
yew tree. 54 When French troops failed to capture any prisoners in
battle, the English waved their two fingers defiantly and shouted, “We
can still pluck yew!” 55 Over the years, according to the legend, the
insult evolved into the single-digit middle finger gesture that is used
today. 56
The weight of historical evidence suggests, however, that the middle
finger gesture actually originated more than 2500 years ago. 57
According to one commentator, it is the “most ubiquitous and longest
lived insulting gesture” in the world, 58 appearing as far back as ancient
Greek texts. 59 In The Clouds, Aristophanes used the middle finger
gesture as a phallic symbol:
Socrates: Polite society will accept you if you can
discriminate, say, between the martial anapest and common
dactylic — sometimes vulgarly called “finger rhythm.”
52
LOHEED ET AL., supra note 33, at 14, 24 (concluding that this story is nothing
more than historical rumor).
53 Id.
54 Id.
55 Id.
56 The V-sign is the English equivalent of the middle finger gesture. See DESMOND
MORRIS ET AL., GESTURES: THEIR ORIGINS AND DISTRIBUTION 232-33 (1979) (explaining
that, although origins of V-sign are unknown, V-sign has become British
schoolchildren’s most favored offensive gesture).
57
LOHEED ET AL., supra note 33, at 12 (stating that first recorded account of
extended middle finger used as insulting gesture occurred in ancient Greece); Bruce
Anderson, The Illustrated History of Flipping the Bird, GQ, Feb. 1997, at 169-72
(finding that the gesture is “as old, hallowed and pancultural as civilization itself” and
discussing names of the gesture in ancient Greece and Rome).
58
ROGER E. AXTELL, GESTURES: THE DO’S AND TABOOS OF BODY LANGUAGE AROUND
THE WORLD 30 (John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 1998).
59
LOHEED ET AL., supra note 33, at 12; Anderson, supra note 57, at 170.