WILD THINGS: ASK THE BIRD GEEK — YEAR-END, GOTTA-GET-THIS-DONE-BY-EARLY-DEADLINE EDITION

Morris Day & The Time perform the song ‘The Bird,” which was co-written by Prince under the pseudonym Jamie Starr. CONTRIBUTED

Why do you refuse to acknowledge the best bird-related song is “The Bird” by Morris

Day & The Time? And would it change your opinion if you knew Prince was a writer using

the pseudonym Jamie Starr? —  Nan, your wife

Answer:

How dare you, madam. Have I not told you, multiple times, about that time at a high school dance, when a bunch of my track geek friends and I started doing the bird – left a couple steps with yours arms outstretched at an angle, then right a couple steps with your arms outstretched at the opposite angle – and then the entire gym started doing it? We were the cool kids for a full three minutes and 40 seconds. I will cherish that glory for the rest of my days. Whawk! Hallelujah! Now I have to go find Jessie and Jerome.

Why is the middle finger considered giving “the bird”? — Larry, whose last name is not Bird

Answer:
The middle finger getting called “the bird” is not an example of convergent evolution in the biological sense, but it is an example of two forms of human expression evolving and converging into a single meaning.

The middle finger, as a gesture, has been around for at least two-and-a-half millennia. The first known usage was by Diogenes, one of the founders of Cynicism and a man who apparently once tried to insult Plato by messing up his carpets. He used the gesture of a displayed middle finger in a play to insult a local politician, though the gesture must have been in the culture previous to that for the audience to get it.

The comic playwright Aristophanes later used the gesture in The Clouds to insult a fictional version of Socrates.

The Romans became such fans of the gesture that they had the their own special name for it – digitus impudicus – meaning the shameless, offensive or, well, impudent finger.

There’s a story that it was used as a gesture of defiance by British archers at the battle of Agincourt in 1415, after the French threatened to cut off their bow-pulling fingers if they were captured, but most reputable historians dispute the accuracy of this.

The first documented case of the gesture in North America was on April 29, 1886 by Charles

“Old Hoss” Radbourn, a baseball pitcher with the Boston Beaneaters, which also sounds made up but isn’t. There is a team photo in which he is giving the gesture clear as day. And yes, he has exactly the kind of ridiculous mustache you would imagine.

Back in the Diogenes/Aristophanes/Roman era, the displayed middle finger was a clear reference to the thing that lies in a gentleman’s bathing suit area. The anthropologist Desmond Morris notes that the extended middle finger, with the index finger and ring finger curled next to it, looks somewhat similar to what the British often refer to as “meat and two veg.”

According to a story in the online magazine Slate, “In a show of superiority, eccentric Roman Emperor Caligula made senators kneel and kiss his middle finger, which was understood to represent his phallus.”

Fun fact: the word “cock” means both male chicken and male genitalia in, like, 19 different languages. (The word “rooster” was put into usage by Puritans in the United States who were uncomfortable with that fact, and imported to England by the Victorians, who were also uncomfortable with that fact.) The close association between the bird and the male sexual organ might lead you to think this is how the phrase “the bird” came into the usage. But no, that’s not the case.

Over the years the gesture has drifted away from being a symbol for waving one’s membrum virile to just more of a general gesture of insult.

In an interview with the BBC, Ira Robbins, a law professor at American University in Washington, D.C., noted, “This gesture is so well ingrained in everyday life in this country and others. It means so many other things, like protest or rage or excitement, it’s not just a phallus.”

To trace the etymology of the term “the bird,” you have to go back to English theater in the Shakespearean era, and possibly earlier. Apparently audiences in that green and pleasant land, as a way of expressing their displeasure at an actor or a speaker, would hiss like angry geese – a custom I think we should consider reviving. Wild Bill himself made a reference to this in Troilus and Cressida, when one of the characters says, “My fear is this, some galled goose of Winchester would hiss.”

For a long time it was called goosing, or giving the goose. And over time the slang evolved to giving, or flipping, the bird. In the states, giving the bird was also used as slang for a similar audible expression of disapproval, the raspberry, also known as the Bronx cheer.

The term “the bird” then began being applied to the quieter, more gestural version of expressing displeasure or hostility. No one is sure of the exact moment this happened, but the first references were seen in the 1940s, and the name has stuck ever since.

For the record, it is not always a hostile gesture. Amongst the people I grew up with in New

Jersey, it is often a gesture of affection. And one my favorite photos I took at my niece’s wedding was of the bride and one of her bridesmaids flipping off the camera.

Haven’t you heard about the bird? Don’t you know that the bird is the word? — Caits, who went down to Georgia

Answer:
No. The bird is a gesture. Or a dance. See above. And have a Happy New Year.

Mark Hedden is a photographer, writer, and semi-professional birdwatcher. He has lived in Key West for more than 25 years and may no longer be employable in the real world. He is also executive director of the Florida Keys Audubon Society.