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

[monaghan at indiana.edu]

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"