10 facts about the "middle finger"

One of the American TV channels had to apologize to viewers after the singer MIA showed his middle finger during the famous TV show Sunday Super Bowl. We offer you a collection of facts about the "middle finger».

1. You might think that showing the middle finger - is something relatively new. In fact it's not. For the first time the middle finger as indecent gestures and expressions of contempt was shown a philosopher Diogenes. Pointing the finger and saying, "This is - a great demagogue," Diogenes expressed his attitude to the orator Demosthenes. It turns out that people put up a middle finger as a symbol of abuse for more than two thousand years!

2. "This is one of the oldest offensive gestures. The middle finger represents the penis and testicles clenched fingers symbolize. Exposing the middle finger at the rest of the compressed fingers, you demonstrate a phallic symbol, "- says the anthropologist Desmond Morris (Desmond Morris).

3. The ancient Romans called this gesture «digitus impudicus», which means "obscene" or "offensive" finger.

4. In one of the epigrams the poet Martial (Martial), happening in the first century AD, the hero expresses its good health and showing obscene gesture known three doctors.

5. "The Roman historian Tacitus (Tacitus) wrote that the warriors of the Germanic tribes Roman soldiers showed the middle finger" - says Thomas Conley (Thomas Conley), professor emeritus at the University of Illinois (University of Illinois). The ancient Greeks showed the middle finger as a sign of male genitalia.

6. In the comedy of Aristophanes' Clouds, "written in 419 BC, the hero of his first shows the middle finger, and then - the penis.

7. The French have their own phallic gesture, which is called «bras d'honneur», which means "hand of honor." This gesture is a bent arm, which put the other arm at the elbow.

8. British as indecent gesture symbolizing the phallus, is showing signs of "Victoria" (raised by an average index and middle finger) while turning the hand palm to her.

9. In December, Liverpool striker Luis Suarez (Luis Suarez) was captured by photographers during a demonstration of the middle finger to the fans Fulham after losing his team. During that football was reprimanded by the English Football Association and disqualification for one game.

10. In 2006, Britney Spears showed his middle finger to photographers, whom she suspected of persecution. However, some fans of the singer took the gesture at his own expense, in connection with which the singer had to apologize.