One-finger salute has long history

Experiencing a three-middle-finger weekend on the road, as I did recently, can naturally lead a person to a moment of serious self-reflection.

The flurry of fingers aimed at me could indicate, I suppose, that my driving is so reckless that it provokes an inordinate number of otherwise mild-mannered and God-fearing motorists to erupt in uncharacteristic gestures of hostility. Yet that is clearly not the case, as I will explain.

My first undeserving bird came as I was hurtling down a highway that was clogged with traffic. A guy in a pickup truck cruised down the on-ramp to my right, unwilling to yield to the flow of traffic as the law required. As we came abreast of one another, he scowled my way, stomped on the gas, and darted ahead of me with his middle finger gesticulating wildly out the window.

Finger No. 2 popped up later that day as I came face to face with a car at a stop sign on a neighborhood street. Since I was going straight, and the young man in the other car was turning left, I had the right of way and so made the first move from the stop. For some reason my maneuver miffed the other driver, who shot in front of me while flipping me off and shouting something unpleasant.

The next finger came the following day from an impatient driver behind me who apparently felt I was a damnable nuisance by going only 40 miles an hour on the 35-mile-an-hour street. As she zoomed by me, she fired a third nasty bird in my direction.

Receiving the finger three times in one weekend can do strange things to a person’s psyche, let me tell you. But rather than take it personally, which I am inclined to do, I would prefer to think that our growing finger-flipping population is simply trying to keep alive a very old tradition, perhaps even elevate its status as the unifying symbol of our increasingly vulgar society. That impertinent little digit certainly does have a long and ignominious history.

According to Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, it is believed that the offensive hand gesture may have been in use for the last 2,500 years or so. In ancient Roman writings, in fact, it is identified appropriately as the “digitus impudicus” or impudent finger. Aristophanes even threw in a reference to the bird in his Greek comedy “The Clouds.” The Romans also used the gesture as a way to ward off evil spells. Flipping someone the bird, then, was a way of telling the recipient that you hoped to ward off his witchery before he could use it against you.

Although most Europeans don’t take great offense at the familiar and overused gesture, I learned, giving someone the finger in Germany, where it’s called “der Stinkefinger,” could easily be construed as an insult that might earn you a punch in the nose. In Chinese Sign Language, on the other hand, the middle finger is used to represent the first born male, a position of status in traditional Chinese culture.

So there you have it, a brief though colorful history of one of the world’s most infamous gestures of contempt. The next time I’m on the receiving end of a “one-finger salute,” I’ll try to look at it not as an unfair rebuke to my character or driving abilities but rather as one person’s attempt to honor a rich cultural heritage passed down to us from the ancients. Who knows, I might even shoot him a return bird in recognition of his efforts.

Unless he’s big and dangerous-looking, of course, in which case I’ll probably take it personally and seethe for a while.