"the finger" in 1932 Hollywood epic

[Jonathan Lighter]

Not exactly an antedating, though the evidence in HDAS is a little
confusing. Put simply, the fig. sense "treat maliciously" is attested (in
Funk & Wagnalls!) in 1890-93, but the literal sense, in ref. to an gesture
is not clearly found till 1961.

(Maybe Jon Green lists an earlier literal ex.)

It is claimed that the gesture comes to us straight from Roman times, but
the lexical evidence says otherwise.  My wild guess is that it was
introduced into Anglo-American culture by Italian immigrants in the 19th C.
 (The point of origin of the British "two-finger" gesture remains a
mystery, and even now it is little known in the U.S.)

Didn't we discuss "giving the bird" long ago?

Originally (19th C. England) it seems to have meant hissing or deriding an
actor on stage. Later, anybody.  The innocuous sense is frequent in the
1940s.  At some point, perhaps ca1950, the phrase came to designate giving
"the finger."  (HDAS exx. begin in 1966).

JL

On Sun, May 13, 2012 at 10:08 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: "the finger" in 1932 Hollywood epic
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> The question is -- is this an antedating?
>
> Joel
>
> At 5/13/2012 07:13 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> >About three-fourths of the way through _The Lost Squadron_ (1932; dir.
> >George Archainbaud), Robert Armstrong (later of _King Kong_) clearly and
> >vigorously gives Richard Dix the finger from the cockpit of a biplane
> which
> >has just been sabotaged by Erich von Stroheim.
> >
> >Naturally I thought I was crazy, but with the help of the olde DVR I
> >verified the gesture plus my sanity.  A reviewer at IMDb caught it as
> well,
> >even though he calls the gesture "the bird":
> >
> >http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0023151/reviews
> >
> >I've never seen it elsewhere in a movie before ca1970.
> >
> >Otherwise the film wasn't real swell. Two stars.
> >
> >JL
> >
> >--
> >"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> truth."
> >
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