“The first man who chose to insult his interlocutor without breaking his head laid the foundations of civilization,” British neurologist John Hullings Jackson once said. An insult is often like a slap in the face – sudden and painful. And if it’s accompanied by a raised middle finger… then it can make the other person angry and angry.
A gesture that made history in sport
Obscene gestures and vulgar expressions can be found everywhere – at the supermarket checkout, in traffic on the street, in conversation.
The same thing happens on the field: a simple gesture can cause a huge stir. It was on June 27, 1994, exactly 30 years ago, when Stefan Effenberg, a football player for the Nationale Mannschaft, was substituted during a World Cup match in the USA. Angered by boos from German fans Effenberg responded by raising his middle finger – a few hours later he was also expelled by the German team.
The story of a challenge
Sometimes this gesture can be a political message or a pop culture symbol, a way of expressing anger. Based on criminal legislation, however, there are also cases in which it can be considered a crime. But how did the “back finger” come about?
This insulting gesture originates from ancient Roman and Greek times and is said to have also been made by philosophers, as Reinhard Krieger writes in his book “To κ@λοδ@χτιλο – The tale of an influential gesture”. 2,500 years ago it was the Greeks who “invented” this specific gesture that allowed them to challenge, mock and insult each other. For both the ancient Greeks and the Romans This gesture symbolized an erect penis and was therefore more of a sexual allusion than as offensive a gesture as it is today.
The man who seems to have invented the gesture was Diogenes the Cynic. At one point, travelers in Athens asked him where they could find the orator Demosthenes. Then Diogenes showed them his middle finger and shouted: “This is for the demagogue of Athens.” The Romans, according to Krieger, called the gesture “digitus impudicus”, which means “the cheeky finger”.
From Europe to America and then to… Duden
The raised middle finger is not a universally recognized gesture – or at least it wasn’t until recently, Krieger writes. The gesture spread along with Greek and Roman culture, while with transatlantic globalization it also reached the New World – with the immigration of many Italians, the gesture was also “transported” to North America. Through film and music – most notably Johnny Cash’s concert at San Quentin prison in 1969 – the obscene gesture has become a worldwide symbol of the revolutionary lifestyle.
In the early 1960s, “middle finger” was also included in Duden, while in 1996 “κ@λοδ@χτυλο” was added to the dictionary. Ellen Fricke, professor of German Studies at the Chemnitz University of Technology, talks about an iconic gesture – that is, a gesture that now has a fixed and universally recognizable meaning, similar to the meaning of the word “ok” or the victory symbol.
Source: Deutsche Welle