This is what Reinhard Krüger writes in his book with the fitting title "The Middle Finger - A Short History of an Effective Gesture" (Der Stinkefinger - Kleine Geschichte einer wirkungsvollen ...

The middle finger originated as a phallic gesture The cheeky Greeks “probably relied on the use of the middle finger to represent an erect penis,” wrote Max Nelson, who teaches courses on ...

Did President Bush show what he really thinks of the media with a flip of his middle finger? Jay Leno thinks so. On "The Tonight Show" Wednesday, the late-night comic showed videotape of the ...

The middle finger isn’t the only digit with a message. The thumb talks too, but generally in happier tones, with an upward point indicating approval, good news or some other nicety.

Then showed that offense with the 2,000-year-old gesture. So say historians, anyway, who date the unfurling of the middle finger to ancient Greece and Rome. Digitus impudicus, it was called.

Max Verstappen was caught showing the middle finger to a rival racing driver on the final day of Formula 1 pre-season testing. However, the reigning world champion will not be penalised over the ...

Morris has said that the middle finger we know today – the digit hoisted high in the air, other fingers bending to its will – represents a penis and testicles. “It is saying, this is a ...

Naughty Grecians likely developed the phallic gesture around 2,500 years ago to offend each other. Here’s how the middle finger became the most obscene digit.