Yeah, I used to do the arm thing with the middle finger extended. I usually used just the finger. I never did the arm thing without the finger.
It must have been from a movie or something. The only people of Italian ancestry near me were my mom and grandma. Neither of them ever flipped off anyone.
The arm thing didn't have the extended finger for me.
I guess we did have a bunch of Polish people around.
Yes, we had a joke in middle school:
Two trees grew in a forest (both forearms raised)
One fell down (forearm across other bicep)
The other grew a leaf (finger extended)
There was a thing with two pairs of hands.
I tried to use that thing where you put your thumb behind your upper front teeth and flick it forward. It was too obscure and now with covid not leaving, it's probably better to stick with gestures that don't involve potential saliva.
twisting your wrist to make the gesture dynamic was how I remember emphasis.
To me the subject that's adjacent are gang hand signs, which get pretty intricate.
In ASL the middle finger handshape is a moderately productive morpheme. If you sign "Go" with middle fingers extended it becomes "fuck off"
We did the two arm thing, the teeth flick thing, and also the one where you brush your chin with your fingers facing down and moving up and away.
that thing where you put your thumb behind your upper front teeth and flick it forward
That was briefly a thing at my high school, because we all found the "do you bite your thumb at me sir" fight at the beginning of R&J so hilarious.
If you are going to use both hands, why not just do the double middle finger?
The arm sweep is a bigger movement.
Pre-AI, no one could have anticipated double middle fingers.
18: Now to write 1.2 million words about it.
I do recall the sequence of:
Kid 1: gives finger
Kid 2: "do you have another one of those"
Kid 1: gives 2nd finger
Kid 2: "stick them up your ass and sit on your elbows."
I think it we did it, or maybe it was just from a movie?
I remember a whole series of elaborate ways to flip someone off, like holding up three fingers and telling them to peel the banana. Or holding it upside down and saying, "Can you hear this"? Then they say no, and you hold it right-side up and say, "Then let me turn it up!" ba dum ching.
Also I would like the record to show that my own OP title keeps making me chuckle, and I'm not too ashamed of my own smarmy twattiness to admit this.
21: Recall the last, but not the banana.
If it wasn't for smarmy twattiness I fear we would have no blog at all.
The "[hand in pocket] oh wait, I've got something in here for you [pull out the bird]" routine is still used by men in their fifties at my workplace.
I have never been flipped off at work since I stopped working in a warehouse as a summer job.
smarm is a fantastic word I had forgotten, thank you. Not quite right here though, an adjective made from persiflage would fit better.
The "[hand in pocket] oh wait, I've got something in here for you [pull out the bird]" routine is still used by men in their fifties at my workplace.
This reminds me of the one where you just sort of scratch your chin or cheek with your middle finger, with a cold expression. It's like the professional version of flipping someone off.
27: Very similar to the resting your face on your hand with middle finger extended up cheek version.
Don't forget the one where you make a fist, then slowly raise the middle finger while you pretend to turn a crank with the other hand. A timeless classic!
I looked it up and apparently no one knows the origin of the two-finger version, though it doesn't seem to go back much before 1900.
"holding up three fingers and telling them to peel the banana."
We had the three fingers but the comment was, "Read between the lines."