[Linganth] Results of the survey of middle finger greeting sightings

[Kenneth Ehrensal]

Maybe we should make the middle finger greeting the official sign of all
future ling-anth sessions at AAA???

************************************************
Ken Ehrensal
Associate Professor
Management Department
Kutztown Univ.
ehrensal at kutztown.edu
----- Original Message -----
From: <monaghan at indiana.edu>
To: <linganth at cc.rochester.edu>
Sent: Thursday, February 10, 2005 11:52 AM
Subject: [Linganth] Results of the survey of middle finger greeting
sightings


>
> Many many thanks for the answers to my mini-survey, appreciate it as
always.
> I've combined them with results from friends on the internet (Let me know
if
> you would like more details on any of this):
>
> Middle finger is reported to be used as greeting by:
>
> White male college students in Ontario, Canada
> Black or Portuguese males in their 20s Bermuda
> White male college students in Pennsylvania, alternative to "'Sup nigga'
or
> some freaking swear word"
> White male college students at UT (Texas?)
> White women in their 20s in Rhode Island
> Californians in cars, aka "California Hello"
> Asian Americans in Los Angeles
> White Illinoisans in their 30s, with flourishes like cranking up the
finger or
> blowing it up through the thumb
> In Eminem's movie "8 Mile" so therefore probably a part of larger rap
culture
> In a Rochester NY high school in the early to mid-1980s
>
> Use is often among very close family or friends including sisters, step
> brothers and fellow members of sports teams you are on, close co-workers,
and
> frat brothers and definitely has implications of both solidarity and
> hostility.  Bob McGovern, my informant on Rochester NY, reports that there
the
> finger was quite definite, done NY style with closed fist (unlike the more
> casual Indiana or LA varieties which seem to be done with the first and
third
> fingers slightly bent), and done only to soccer or ski team mates in a
public
> place.  The theory of this usage was to confuse outsiders to the group
about
> whether the participants were angry at each other or not.
>
> In a quick informal survey in one of my IU classes, 3 of 6 males and 3 of
15
> females used it as a casual greeting but all acknowledged that the
greeting
> had a doubleness to it--both friendly to intimates and hostile to others.
>
>
> Not seen at the IU South Bend
> Not reported by people in their 40s or older
>
> Also seen:
>
> Brooklyn, NY: 1970s: Pushing up glasses with middle finger as
crypto-insult
> Other current crypto insult forms
>
> Ireland, Male game reported by Aoife Snow of the ASOIAF Board
> "where, over the course of a long interaction (e.g. going out for drinks,
on a
> plane flight, etc), they will take turns trying to get each other to
> "unsuspectingly" look at 'the bird'.*)
>
> *I say unsuspectingly because of course they know this game is always
going
> on, so they know the possibility is always there.
>
> It's odd, but it's also strangely amusing to watch, even though the women
> aren't involved directly"
>
>
>