# What's the origin of this hand signal?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-origin-of-this-hand-signal/116227
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [June 27, 2002, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-origin-of-this-hand-signal/116227 "2002-06-27T13:52:12Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)
#### Post date: [June 27, 2002, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-origin-of-this-hand-signal/116227/1 "2002-06-27T13:52:12Z")
**[sub]No, not flipping the bird.[/sub]**
What’s the origin thumbing one’s nose? Does it even have a traceable origin?
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [June 27, 2002, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-origin-of-this-hand-signal/116227/2 "2002-06-27T13:58:39Z")
I don’t know. Could it be related to biting one’s thumb (mentioned in Shakespeare’s _Romeo and Juliet_?
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### Author:  [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)
#### Post date: [June 29, 2002, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-origin-of-this-hand-signal/116227/3 "2002-06-29T17:14:57Z")
Possibly related to these two gestures is a French one. Place your thumbnail behind your front teeth, and flip it forward, making a little snapping noise. This means, roughly, “That’s so stupid, it makes my teeth hurt!”
Thumbing one’s nose (hold the open hand in front of the face with the thumb touching the end of the nose, and wiggle the fingers) is a gesture of disrepect or flauting. I don’t recognize biting the thumb, unless it’s the supressed-lust thing we see in the intro to “Laverne and Shirley.”
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### Author:  [@Loopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopus)
#### Post date: [June 29, 2002, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-origin-of-this-hand-signal/116227/4 "2002-06-29T20:57:17Z")
Cecil’s column on the subject: [What’s the origin of “the finger”?](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a980904.html).
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### Author:  [@Loopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopus)
#### Post date: [June 29, 2002, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-origin-of-this-hand-signal/116227/5 "2002-06-29T20:58:29Z")
Oops, should have actually read the OP. :smack:
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### Author:  [@Thylacine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thylacine)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2002, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-origin-of-this-hand-signal/116227/6 "2002-06-30T03:36:31Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by AskNott \*
> \*\*Thumbing one’s nose (hold the open hand in front of the face with the thumb touching the end of the nose, and wiggle the fingers) is a gesture of disrepect or flauting. \*\*
I had an English teacher who told us it was a grevious insult in Shakespearean times basically meaning you are a cock/ rooster/ male chicken by imitating the comb over the beak. It was supposedly the equivalent of today’s middle finger salute.
I have no idea if it is true now I think about it but it made sense to me at the time.
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### Author:  [@femtosecond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/femtosecond)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2002, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-origin-of-this-hand-signal/116227/7 "2002-06-30T13:22:40Z")
> [@](#):
>
> _Originally posted by AskNott_
> **Possibly related to these two gestures is a French one. Place your thumbnail behind your front teeth, and flip it forward, making a little snapping noise. This means, roughly, "That’s so stupid, it makes my teeth hurt!"**
Those wacky Frenchmen. I tried it. Now my teeth _and_ my thumb hurt.
From the phrase finder forum: [http://phrases.shu.ac.uk/bulletin\_board/13/messages/1474.html](http://phrases.shu.ac.uk/bulletin_board/13/messages/1474.html)
> [@](#):
>
> Certainly in the part of London I grew up in in the 1930s and 40s, ‘thumbing your nose’ was very popular with kids as a form of defiance against almost anyone else - other kids, grown ups (you hoped you weren’t indentified while you were running away, which is what you always did if adults were involved!). I don’t know its origin but I guess pretty old, possibly centuries. It was almost never used by adults and was regarded as childlike.
It also mentions Shakespeare, though I don’t believe that’s the origin.
FWIW, in German it’s called “eine lange Nase machen” (to make a long nose).
Maybe related: [The “Nyah Nyah” tune: Where did it come from?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=59949) and [Where does “neener neener neener” come from?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=48459)
> [@](#):
>
> _Originally posted by JoeyBlades_
> It may be used as a song of ridicule today, but originally it was a playful taunt… essentially “you can’t catch me”.
Why do you sing “nyah-nya-nya-nyah-nya” while you do the nose thing, or rather why do you do the nose while you sing? Was it a gesture used in playing “Ring around the rosie”? The nose coming from children in a “you can’t catch me” game sounds like a good theory. But true?