I remember using that insult in junior high in the 1980’s in the pacific northwest. You also see Phil Silvers using it in “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World” when he’s trying to get a ride after losing his car in the river. I always thought it was a mild “you bastard” kind of insult but never really knew what it literally meant.
Personnally, I’d use it as an emphatic “nothing” or “zero”.
Same with “sticking the thumb tip behind your top teeth and flick it” mentionned by another poster. Except that it’s the nail, not the thumb tip (so that it makes a little “click” noise). It also means “I/you/he will get/got absolutely nothing”.
Romeo and Juliet, Act I, Scene 1:
GREGORY I will frown as I pass by, and let them take it as
they list.
SAMPSON Nay, as they dare. I will bite my thumb at them;
which is a disgrace to them, if they bear it.
Enter ABRAHAM and BALTHASAR
ABRAHAM Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?
SAMPSON I do bite my thumb, sir.
ABRAHAM Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?
SAMPSON Aside to GREGORY
ay?
GREGORY No.
SAMPSON No, sir, I do not bite my thumb at you, sir, but I
bite my thumb, sir.
GREGORY Do you quarrel, sir?
ABRAHAM Quarrel sir! no, sir.
A native of Munich told me years ago that making the “A-OK” sign to someone in Bavaria means “I’m going to sodomize you.” Can anyone confirm or refute this?
Some non insulting/taboo examples:
In bulgaria, nodding/shaking of the head is reversed of the US. Up-and-down (whole fence! both side!) means ‘no’, while side-to-side (whole house!) means ‘yes.’ I am told it can be confusing if a Bulgarian is speaking to a tourist, and they are both trying to compensate for the difference.
Also, in Hungary (and how much else of Europe?) they count on their hands differently than, well, I think most of the US does (I’m from NW Indiana). For them, the thumb is ‘one’, and the thumb plus index finger is ‘two,’ while for me, the index finger alone is ‘one,’ while the index plus middle finger is ‘two.’
This created the following minor confusions: I was ordering pastries, and I wanted one, so I held out my index finger. The pastry lady gave my a confused look, and held out thumb plus index, and said, “ketto?” (two), because my gesture looked like a funny way of indicating ‘two’ to her (this happened at a lot of places actually). Also, at a restaurant, a waitress came and took my friend’s empty beer glass and he gave her a thumbs up, which was an (admittedly strange) American way of saying ‘thanks,’ but she interpreted this as ‘one,’ as in ‘I’d like one more beer, please.’
I started a thread on this subject a while back. For me, the thumb is “one” etc and I’m hardly Bulgarian (I’m Irish, in fact). But apparently many people here in these islands west of the European mainland use the little finger as “one”.
The horns – pinky finger and index finger up, other fingers down, is an old traditional gesture to ward off the evil eye, but in the US it’s morphed into the, well, I don’t know if it has an official name, but the heavy metal sign, or the “rock on” sign. Dude.
However, in Italy, it’s become the sign of the cuckold – flashing it is way of saying “Everyone in this room nailed your wife, sucker!” or just a general f— off. Every so often a tabloid will find a photo of a politician or other public figure making the horns (the corna, in Italian) surreptitiously while otherwise appearing to be speaking politely with an opponent. Like the finger in the US, the intensity depends on the context – you might do it offhandedly if joking around with your friends, but it can also be a real shocker if it comes up in a more serious situation.
The head of my Anthropology department in undergrad did his ethnography among the Dani, a horticulturalist tribe in New Guinia living in basically a stone-age technology. You know, the guys who wear the penis gourds. Anyway, instead of pointing at something with their finger, the Dani will point at something with their lips in a little kissy face sort of gesture. If it’s something really far away, they’ll make the kissy face gesture several times in rapid succession. Dani men are also in the habit of standing hip to hip each with one hand on on the other’s buttock when engaged in conversation.
He said these were two practices he had to be very careful not to do anymore when he moved back to America, especially in tandem.
Sure it does. “Hook 'em Horns”
The fig, as this is commonly known, is a pretty confusing gesture that ranges from unknown (in the US) to good luck (in Brazil) to sexual (some European countries) to insulting (other European countries). In the former Yugoslavia, it apparently meant “nothing”. source
See Gestures, by Robert Axtell for a fairly comprehensive study on this subject.
Interesting. Ronnie James Dio (who sometimes gets the credit for introducing the gesture to heavy metal) says that he got it from his Italian gramma who used it in the “go away evil eye” sense not the “your wife is a ho” sense…
It’s the same in Japan. I was confused as to why my girlfriend was waving ‘hello’ at me until I figured out that she was asking me to come over to her.
One gesture that’s not so much rude as mystifying elsewhere (at least in North America), is the Japanese sign made by crossing the index fingers (as an “X”), to mean “done” or “no more.” In a bar or restaurant, it’s the signal for the bill (check in USian). A subway official once indicated (from a distance) that I’d missed the last train by making the same sign with his forearms.
I don’t think that is true, and I’ve been living here for quite a long while. But you don’t see many people using the gesture for the other meaning either.
I once witnessed a silly game among school children (mostly boys, I guess). One makes the “A-OK”, and if the other looks at it, he gets punched in the shoulder. Why? Beats me.
In most places I’ve been to in China, this sign (fingers or forearm) was used to indicate that somewhere (restaurant, bar, store) was closed
In Thailand, never ever use your feet to indicate anything. It’s very insulting. Never show anyone the soles of your feet. Don’t put your feet up on furniture. If something or someone is lying on the ground, do everything in your power to walk around, not over, it.
Not confusing, but in France, “I don’t believe you” is indicated by tugging gently with your index finger at a lower eyelid.
In England, amongst schoolchildren, disbelief is indicated by stroking the chin with one hand - the longer the chin stroke, the greater the lie, leading rise to phrases such as “ayatollah”, as one strokes an imaginary long white beard.
In France, making a fist around the tip of the nose, then rotating it, indicates “the person to whom we are referring is drunk”.
In Japan, when people indicate themselves, they point to their nose, not their chest.
What they are doing is showing your their eye which is a physical way of saying ‘my eye’ as we do in English, meaning ‘I don’t believe you’.
The same gesture in Japan means “nyah, nyah!” and is usually accompanied by an extended tongue.
One thing to beware of in Japan: never do the “I’ve got your nose” trick with kids there. The gesture (thumb sticking out between index and middle fingers) means “female genitalia.”
I attended HS in NE Ohio in the mid 50’s and we sometimes used the “horn” gesture. It was meant as a more intense version of “the bird”.
I agree about beckoning to someone w/ your palm down and the showing of the soles of your shoes, insulting in many eastern cultures.
Vietnamese men often walk hand in hand w/ a male friend and put their arm around the shoulder of a friend. Many G.I.'s misinterpreted these as an indications of homosexuality.
I remember some time ago, an American general in Iraq was criticized for stating that Iraqi men should stop holding hands and kissing each other on the cheeks so often because people would think they were gay.
Does anyone remember this. I’ve actually tried to find it recently, but I don’t rememebr where I say it.
That game’s not limited to Germany, we used to play it, too (sometimes still do when drunk 
).
When I was growing up (pre-teen in early 1980s Toronto, Canada) we kids understood the “horns” to mean “bullshit.” Being that we were kids and the gesture was vulgar (and thus highly coveted out of parental sight), we often used it interchangeably with The Finger. If we wanted to add particular emphasis to the gestures, they would be “thrown.” (Begin with arm at your side, hand in a fist; bring arm up fully extended while with your other arm, hand flat out, make a sideways karate chop motion; intersect the rising arm with the chopping arm at the midway point on the inside of the elbow but continue to raise the forearm of the gesture hand until it is straight up, then extend the finger(s) to make the gesture)
We would also make the “va fanculo” chin stroke with the backs of our hands stroking the fingernails against the skin in a sweeping motion from the throat up and off the chin.
Friends of mine have told me that pointing with the lips is common in Columbia. We often point with our lips as a joke now.