The finger
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In western cultures, the finger, as in giving someone the finger, is a popularly known, yet obscene, hand gesture made by extending the middle finger of the hand while bending the other fingers at the second knuckle, though the latter is optional. The finger is a silent way of saying "fuck you", using the finger as a phallic symbol. The reference to coitus may be strengthened by first wetting the finger or by sucking on it.

The gesture is also known as "the bird", "flipping the bird", "you're number one", "the one-finger salute", "the highway salute", "flipping (someone) off", "showing someone the middle finger", "digital signalling", "thumbs up plus 2", or "the Trudeau/Salmon Arm salute" (in Canada).

Origin

The origin of this gesture is highly speculative, but is quite possibly up to 2500 years old. It is identified as the digitus impudicus ('impudent finger') in Ancient Roman writings [1] and reference is made to using the finger in the Ancient Greek comedy The Clouds by Aristophanes. It was defined there as a gesture intended to insult another. It has been noted that the gesture resembles an erect penis.[citation needed]

Ancient Romans also considered an image of an erect phallus as a talisman against evil spells. As a consequence, displaying this gesture to another may not have been a pseudo-sexual insult but rather an insulting statement along the lines of—"I'm going to protect myself against your witchcraft, before you even start" but an even earlier reference is made to ancient farmers using this finger to test hens for coming eggs.

Jean Froissart (circa 1337-circa 1404) was a historian and the author of the Chronicle, a document that is essential to an understanding of Europe in the fourteenth century and to the twists and turns taken by the Hundred Years' War. The story of the English waving their fingers at the French is told in the first person account by Jean Froissart. However, the description is not of an incident at the Battle of Agincourt, but rather at the siege of a castle nearby in the Hundred Years' War. Adding to the evidence is that by all accounts Jean Froissart died before the battle actually took place; it was therefore rather difficult for him to have written about it.