Mountain Goat wrote:
I remember when someone while I was in my youth put their two fingers up at me and I was annoyed with them so I put up ALL my fingers at them back, and people thought that was funny, but to me it was the ultimate insult.
I think the idea here is that the two fingers indicate two legs up in the air.
I watched a movie about Winston Churchill. In the film he intends to display the "V for Victory" sign with his hand for a press photographer. He displays the hand gesture with the palm facing away from the camera, instead of towards the camera.
(I think this was based on a real newspaper photo - I don't know I wasn't born at the time and I never lived in England).
In the film one of his employees has to explain to the "High Class" Churchill the meaning of the gesture he displayed is "up yours". The employee who is "lower class" considers this common knowledge but still hesitates to put the thing into words.
Churchill insists. The employee finishes up by saying "this way is ok" (palm out - V for Victory) "but not this way" (palm in - up yours). Churchill takes the lesson well and chuckles to himself now that he knows the rules.
In the U.S. we have a similar gesture which is called "the bird". the hand is displayed with palm away from the viewer and the middle finger extended, the rest of the hand closed like a fist. "The bird" is meant to look like a male's private parts. The words "the bird" come from the idea of a baby bird sitting in a nest with its neck extended upwards. The nest is made of grass and so forth. Again the image is like that of a male's private parts with the grass representing hair, two eggs representing balls and the bird representing the shaft.
The "insult" part comes from the connection between power and sex. The idea is that I am so powerful I could use my physical power to force sex on you and prove myself powerful and you weak.
It also indicates "shock value" in that "I am so powerful that I can do away with polite convention and not mention sexual things, but instead use them as an insult which will shock you, showing me to be powerful and you to be weak".
The connection between sex and violence, or power is a complex one, but fits in with many other insults and swear words.
So: more than two fingers simply does not have the same effect as an insult.
It tends to convey "I don't understand what you said" more than "I insult you 2.5 more times than you insulted me".
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ADHD-I(diagnosed) ASD-HF(diagnosed)
RDOS scores - Aspie score 131/200 - neurotypical score 69/200 - very likely Aspie