Only Americans could take a simple insult like the finger and give it an infinite series of spins. Chalk it up to a nation of misplaced ingenuity. The same people who once led the globe in producing cars now head the world in super-sized, musk-scented Pop Tarts. We spend more time and money on games and entertainment than on education, so it's not surprising that our slang expressions are more advanced than any space program. Foreign swears may be more poetic (may the fleas of a thousand camels infest your armpits!), but they're long-winded and often in another language. When it comes to shit, tit, and dick, nobody does it better than Americans.

In the name of cultural advancement, we document 19 well-known finger variations in our book, accompanied by handy diagrams for slow learners and recent immigrants. On the website, we offer you 3 of those, and several new ones. Too bad for you.

The popular saying "Not Loud Enough For You? Then Turn It Up!" (figure 1), features a downturned bird spun upwards to symbolize a volume knob of increasing tension. Like most things at high volume (drum circles, guitars, Apocalypse Now), this insult works best if you're a little stoned, or at least sound that way.

Sometimes tradition needs to be honored. Before the automobile, we traveled mainly by horse, so the term "Fuck You and the Horse You Rode in On" (figure 2) reminds us of those bygone days. A normal upturned finger, rotated 90 degrees on its side, signifies both the recipient and his or her stallion. By adding the horse to the insult, the user negates the victim's entire place in the space/time continuum. If the horse is fucked too, then the victim is in fact back to square one÷shit out of luck, as they say. This variation is a favorite of existentialists everywhere.

Still other variations alter the insult by using truncated fingers or substitutes. When telling someone to "Read Between the Lines" (figure 3), hold up the index, middle and fourth fingers and bunch them together. Your helpless victim will have to Sherlock Holmes his own fuck-off.

Not Covered in the Book
Several other gestures were mysteriously absent from the book. Why? Well--- some were sort of silly. Others (The Space Shuttle and Ass Popper) were considered too offensive for the general public. Ha!

THE ASS POPPER (not pictured) simulates a full-on reamer by directing the middle finger back and forth toward the crack of one's behind (aka "Ass").  Anal violation is considered a taboo in most cultures, except perhaps by certain circles  who enjoy musical theatre.

If you launch a middle finger into the air and mimic its explosion, you get the SPACE SHUTTLE CHALLENGER (figure 4) takes a satiric dig at NASA and its first teacher still orbiting the planet.

SHHHH! (not pictured) is a timeworn gesture calling for silence.  All it takes is an upturned bird across a set of pursed lips to get a new twist when you demand quiet with your own substitute phallus. Director John Waters can be seen doing this classic move in the FAMOUS FINGERS chapter.

BLOWJOB (figure 6) is just plain nasty. So is this picture.

FINGER FACT:
For the childhood game of "here is the church, here is the steeple", fingers (including the middle one) represent  the people let out after the doors have been open.

History of
THE FINGER

 Famous
FINGERS