Page "Finger (gesture)" Paragraph 9

Linguist Jesse Sheidlower traces the gesture's development in the United States to the 1890s.

According to anthropologist Desmond Morris, the gesture probably came to the United States via Italian immigrants.

The first documented appearance of the finger in the United States was in 1886 when Old Hoss Radbourn, a baseball pitcher for the Boston Beaneaters, was photographed giving it to a member of the rival New York Giants.