giving the finger

[Jonathan Lighter]

Re the "Pluck yew !" incident. Wackypedia's discussion page on "the finger" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:The_finger says that in Britain the story is well-known as "the" explanation of the Anglo-Celtic _two-finger_ digiti impudici.

  Why this gesture is virtually unknown in the U.S., and why the supposedly ancient "one-finger" gesture was formerly rare in the British Isles, are questions not yet answered by our anthropologists.

  JL


George Thompson <george.thompson at NYU.EDU> wrote:
  ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: George Thompson
Subject: giving the finger
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HDAS has this low expression (4a) only from 1961 and after, with a 1938
citation in [], though JL notes that it must be much older than is
recorded. A related sanitized expression (4b) he can date to 1890/93
and after.

This weekend I was listing to an album of Anita O'Day singing with the
Gene Krupa Orchestra. One of the tunes was a very inane novelty
love-song called "Coppin' a Plea", which she sang with more spirit than
it deserved.
The song contains the lines "I hope some day to give him the finger, I
mean the one for a ring."
The number was recorded on October 14, 1941.
This is on a 4-cd box set of O'Day's recordings, called "Young Anita"
(ProperBox 21) and specifically is on the disc called "Gene Krupa Days".
The line comes at the end of the song, which is unfortunate for any of
you who think you must verify my transcription. Still, as I said, she
sings it with spirit. The recording date comes from the accompanying
booklet.

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.

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