"snubbing your nose"

[sagehen]

JL writes:
>I may have mentioned this long ago.  I learned the thumbing the nose
>gesture (with waving fingers) from a little girl in my second-grade class
>(1955-56) who specifically said that the gesture meant "kiss my behind !"
~~~~~~~~~~
This was both the gesture & the meaning given it  in the '30s & '40s among
the kids I knew.  And it was definitely "thumbing," not "snubbing."
Snubbing suggests to me a different gesture which I think of as more
European than American, with the fingers curled into a fist with the  thumb
outstretched to flip up the end of the nose. Being quicker & less
flamboyant than thumbing, more likely to be used by adults. Certainly
contemptuous, but whether specificlly KMA......?
AM


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