However, sticking your little finger out for the entire duration of a party just on the off-chance you might put your glass down seems a little overboard. Queen Elizabeth I had forks for sweetmeats but chose to use her fingers instead, finding even the spearing motion to be too crude. Gently does it Some claim a raised little finger lets you set it a cup down gently and thus avoid an uncouth clanking noise. Why the Chinese don’t raise their pinky has never been properly explained. If you didn’t want your fingers to burn from the hot cup you would have as few fingers around the cup as possible.īecause imported tea was terribly expensive, the gesture lived on for centuries as an affectation of the rich and pretentious. (In Victorian days, tea drinkers poured their tea into saucers to cool before sipping, this was perfectly acceptable.) Not until the mid 1750’s was a handle added to prevent the ladies from burning their fingers. Chinese tea bowls influenced the first European teacups.Īt first, the English made cups without handles in the traditional Chinese style. Can’t Handle It Tea cups didn’t always have handles. The pinky “up” movement may have evolved from a misinterpretation of the 3 fingers vs 5 fingers dining etiquette. The ring and pinkie finger politely covered one’s mouth area, as the food was being ingested. The ring and pinky finger are known as the “fingers of courtesy.” Since ancient Rome, the elite ate with three fingers, while the commoner ate with five. “Servants have touched the goblet of the King, therefore he will touch it as little as possible.” Fingers of courtesy The crooked, extended pinky may date back to the eleventh century crusades and the courtly etiquette of knighthood.
CIRCLE JOINING HANDS HOLD PINKY THUMB HOW TO
Icky Servants Some claim (and it’s recurs in Man in the Iron Mask) that because glasses had been handled by servants,the nobility wanted to handle them as little as possible.Īthos teaches Phillippe how to hold the glass like a king: This slander may be something to do with Sander’s personal vendetta against Boleyn’s daughter, Queen Elizabeth I, whose religious policies forced him into exile.Īlso, Sander never even saw Boleyn in person. While a great story, it’s most likely untrue. He also describes her as having a “large wen under her chin”. “…had a projecting tooth under the upper lip, and on her right hand, six fingers.” Writing a few decades after Boleyn’s death, Catholic propagandist Nicholas Sander notes that the young queen Anne Boleyn’s extra pinky finger Anne Boleyn supposedly had an extra pinky finger which couldn’t bend, and copying her was fashionable. Servants picked up the habit of keeping a “posh” finger extended while drinking and dining. “elaborate, and often elegant, finger choreography…Dipped into the salt, sweet basil, cinnamoned sugar, or ground mustard seed, then raised to the tongue, the spice fingers displayed a feaster’s digital finesse while adding another sensual pleasure: touch of food’s texture.”ĭiners frowned upon people who licked their fingers while sharing a plate with others - talk about bad manners!
Historian Madeleine Pelner Cosman describes Medieval feasting as They never touched food or gravy or sauce, being reserved as spice fingers. While foods were eaten with one’s hands and a knife, both pinky fingers were extended. Spice Fingers Only the Medieval wealthy could afford to purchase salt and exotic spices, like nutmeg, at their tables. Princess Alexandra of Denmark’s limp inspired a generation of Victorian ladies to limp around on mismatched shoes in the name of fashion. The non-infected commoners aped the nobility. When holding a glass or cup, your pinkie will point uselessly at the ceiling.Įxtending the pinky may also have been a courtly sign to indicate one had syphilis (how civilized!).
After a few years, you are no longer able to bend your pinky finger. One thing syphilis does is damage the joints of your fingers. One commonly held belief is that the court of Louis XIV in 17th century Paris was so rife with syphilis that a symptom became a sign of the upper class. The Syphilis Finger The “pinky up” position may be about sexual disease. Here are some of the cockamamie stories and myths behind cocking up the little finger. When Barack Obama was pictured sipping a craft beer with his little finger extended, twitter threatened to have his “ Man card revoked”. For others, it’s the depths of snobbish affectation. How we use the pinky finger when having a drink is fraught with controversy.įor some, extending the little finger is the height if refinement.
Twitter went crazy when Obama extended his pinky finger In Middle English, it’s the “little man”. The Anglo-Saxons called it the “ear finger”.
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