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Why Is The Middle Finger Offensive?

Like the Devil Himself, the middle finger bears many names and adopts many guises. There’s the “single-digit salute” favored by punk rockers and rebellious celebrities. Or the “expressway digit,” a remarkable single-sign code by which California drivers communicate their complex emotions. It’s also known as “the bird,” a poor symbolic avian that is endlessly flipped and flicked. It can be displayed statically, waggling and waving, thrusting with rage, or drooping dispassionately from the hand of a rapper.

Long before punk rock and eight-lane highways, the middle finger was known as the digitus impudicus or digitus infamis (indecent or infamous digit) by Romans and medieval Europeans. Augustus Caesar once booted an entertainer for giving a heckler the finger. And the lunatic emperor Caligula — famed for such crimes as wearing women’s clothes and murdering indiscriminately — was said to have habitually offered his digitus infamis to be kissed by his enemies, just to flaunt his imperial disdain. Until, of course, one of those enemies stabbed Caligula in the neck.

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