"the finger" in 1932 Hollywood epic

[Jonathan Lighter]

Thanks, John. The picture slipped my mind as I wrote.

In any case, I didn't discover it until after HDAS 1 was published in 1994.
IIRC, it first appeared in the book accompanying Ken Burns's _Baseball_ TV
series.

BTW, "flipping the bird" is obviously more descriptive of the gesture than
is the earlier "giving the bird."

JL


On Mon, May 14, 2012 at 10:51 AM, Baker, John <JBAKER at stradley.com> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Baker, John" <JBAKER at STRADLEY.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "the finger" in 1932 Hollywood epic
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> The Wikipedia article on Finger (gesture) includes a picture of what it
> says is a baseball pitcher giving the finger to the camera in a team
> picture in 1886.  It's kind of hard to see the detail in the version of the
> picture on Wikipedia, but it does look like that might be what he's doing.
>  That would probably be the earliest photographic evidence of flipping the
> bird.
>
>
> John Baker
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
> Of Jonathan Lighter
> Sent: Monday, May 14, 2012 7:29 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: "the finger" in 1932 Hollywood epic
>
> 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:
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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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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