Dirty finger

Thumbkin, Pointer, Ring Finger, and Pinkie must be thanking their lucky stars that they did not have the anatomical fate to be the middle digit of the human hand. Unfortunately for Tall Man, he is, and so was bestowed by the Ancient Romans with the foul nickname digitus infamis or digitus impudicus, which more or less translates to what we today call in ordinary English as the Dirty Finger. 

Known also as the One Finger Salute, Flipping the Bird, or in my grade-school days simply as the Bad Sign, it recently became front-page news when some government officials and media personalities very publicly waved it around on prime time TV. The controversial hand action is, more precisely, the particular gesture of showing the back of a closed hand with only the middle finger extended upwards. It is universally considered today as an obscene gesture with unmistakable phallic connotations. According to some experts, the Ancient Romans used it “… as a symbol of anal intercourse meant to degrade, intimidate and threaten the object of their ire.”      Emperor Caligula was said to have even used it to insult people by making them kiss his middle finger instead of his hand. Interestingly, some claim that the origin of the gesture goes beyond the Romans or the Greeks and that it has animalistic and primordial roots. Reinhold Aman, the publisher of Maledicta, a scholarly journal dedicated entirely to the study of offensive language, says that the gesture can be traced to the animal kingdom. Male baboons, for example, become erect as both a warning of impending danger and a threat to predators. According to Aman, when people use the finger, we quite literally then act like apes.

Since so many people have already sunk — if you pardon the pun — their fingers into the recent controversies mentioned earlier, I won’t anymore delve into the specific actions of the individuals involved. These incidents, however, have raised once more the issue of the ever increasing and widespread use of profanity in society and what to tell our kids about it. I do admit that when I was a boy, I used profanity a lot. I guess that it was a schoolyard thing and most of the other boys in my very Catholic school swore a lot, too.   I don’t really know why we cursed and showed the finger to each other all the time, but perhaps it was because we thought that it was cool and that it made us feel grown-up. Yet there were always unspoken limits to it. We never used profanity in front of girls, for example, or teachers, parents, and other adults. Oddly enough, we as kids showed more restraint in this regard than many adults who seemed to have found nothing wrong in publicly cursing each other all the time. Over time, I realized that it was really silly and immature. I mean most, if not all profanity, are either blasphemous or obsessed with our sex organs and bodily fluids. Of course, I’m but human and so have from time to time slipped, particularly when I’m driving. But one thing that I am proud of as a parent is that I don’t think my kids have ever heard me swear or seen me flip the bird to anyone yet. Maybe this is one reason why they haven’t done so either although I do also credit their limited exposure to media and the nurturing environment of their school for this as well.

I do accept the fact, however, that it is impossible to keep my children from being exposed to profanity, especially in today’s society. It’s everywhere. It’s on television, radio, movies, and music. And even when they “bleep them out” or use acronyms like “sob” or “p-ina,” everyone knows what they are. So what’s the best strategy for parents to keep their children from spewing profanities? First of all, experts advise that the best and most effective way is for parents not to use them. It should not just be “Do as I say, not as I do.” Rather, it should be “Do as I do.” I know that it’s hard and I sometimes feel so happy when I’m alone in the car and “free” to scream at the taxi driver who cut in front of me. But even on such occasions, however, I’ve found that thinking about my kids’ welfare has helped me check myself from losing my cool.

Secondly, parents and teachers should make a stand and explain to children that it’s not okay to use profanity regardless of what their favorite rapper or teen idol does. If we do hear them curse or perform obscene gestures, we should never act as if it’s funny or just let it slide. Of course, we should also not over-react and immediately sentence them to life imprisonment. We should, however, make it unmistakably clear that we think it’s wrong. The explanations may vary depending on the age. But the bottom line is that profanity is hurtful, especially when used to insult or in anger, and it’s dumb, and it’s uneducated. Besides, really, who wants to act like an ape?

* * *

Please e-mail your reactions to kindergartendad@yahoo.com.