When I was in elementary school I tried to start a protest during the break by getting on the desk and proclaiming that we need to stop the discrimination of the middle finger, it is a finger like the others and should be allowed to stand on its own just like the other fingers. Needless to say I held up my middle fingers during that passionate speech. I was also very sincere about it, not emotional, but I did find it unjust. I'm not sure where I am going with this but it was weighing on my chest for too long and needed to get out finally. Thanks for reading.
this post was submitted on 27 Apr 2025
89 points (73.1% liked)
Showerthoughts
33919 readers
1664 users here now
A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
- Both β200β and β160β are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When youβre a kid, you donβt realize youβre also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
Rules
- All posts must be showerthoughts
- The entire showerthought must be in the title
- No politics
- If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
- A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
- Posts must be original/unique
- Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct and the TOS
If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.
Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report, the message goes away and you never worry about it.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Why do you accept your pinky as a finger?
Yeah, that's classified as dwarf finger now.
What do you consider the thumb to be if not another finger?
Its a thumb. Its its own thing. If we had only ~~5~~ fingers we would be INFERIOR BEINGS
glares at spider monkies
Edit: apparently sponkeys have 4 fingers on their hands and thumbs on their feet
Nah it's the thumb finger, like the index finger etc. We have fully truncated it to just thumb because of how it feels more unique to the others. Doesn't mean it no longer fits the categorisation though.
We have fully truncated it to just thumb because of how it feels more unique to the others
Kinda like the goalie on a hockey team or the drummer in a band. Still on the team, just a bit weirder.
how is a thumb different from a finger?
Its a thumb. Its oppsable. If you had 2+ thumbs on each hand we would probably differentiate them more
Are your fingers not opposable? I can move all of my fingers and touch the other 4?
Ah yes, that's why we can only count to 8 using our fingers
how does being opposable make it not a finger?
The Sangheli in Halo actually have two fingers and two thumbs on each hand.
What's wrong with you?
I used to genuinely argue that it wasn't a finger bc it had only two segments, not three. I've since realized that there is a third and I'm fucking stupid.
Your original instinct was actually correct. Fingers have the metacarpal, proximal phalange, middle phalange, and distal phalange. The thumb doesn't have a middle phalange. The proximal and distal phalange connect directly to each other.
All of them are fingers. Thumbs are fingers, but a finger is not necessarily a thumb. I dont know where people get the idea that a thumb is not a finger. So many common sayings reinforce that it is. "Counting on your fingers (including your thumbs)", healthy babies have "Ten fingers, ten toes", "What did the five fingers say to the face... slap", "high five", "five finger discount", etc. Also, honorable mention to Princess Bride's Inigo Montoya searching for "the 6 fingered man" which includes his thumb. "Middle finger" is not the only thing that makes no sense if you don't accept that the thumb is a finger.
In almost every other language there isn't even a separate word for "thumb", it's just one of the fingers.
I don't think that's right? I know polish has a separate word, and sampling in Google translate seems to show separate words in German, french and Spanish. Maybe I got lucky and hit the exceptions, but it seems to commonly be a separate word.
I only know Japanese, but it is θ¦ͺζ (oya yubi) which means parent-finger.
Do other fingers get their own names in those languages, though? Or is thumb special, like in English?
Not sure about other languages, but in polish the thumb is "kciuk", while the rest are variants on finger - "palec wskazujΔ cy", "palec Εrodkowy"
Edit: checking google translate, German seems to be the same, with the thumb being a distinct word, and the rest being compound words of "finger"
The thumb, the misunderstood tentacle.
An essay.
This is like the square/rectangle thing: "Not all fingers are thumbs, but all thumbs are fingers".
I swear one of these days I'm gonna dive into Wikipedia and find the name for that kinda relationship
I don't know if there's a better term, but a subset is what it is.
Except for some monkey thumbs that are toes... Apes are so clearly superior even in the thumb area
It's pretty normal to count the thumb as a finger. I find it strange that you would not.
If you were asked "how many fingers do you have", would you answer 8, or 10? Surely, everyone knows the answer is 10 (assuming no physical abnormalities)? On a fingering chart, music will instruct you to play a note with your thumb with the number "1" and your pinky with the number "5".
load more comments
(17 replies)
The thumb is thicker than other digits so naturally it'll be harder to accept. A lubricant may help but the key is to relax and go slow.
load more comments
(1 replies)
Well, it's not a toe.
I wonder if OP thinks the big toe isn't a toe...
You don't consider a thumb a finger? What is it then in your world? Tail?
load more comments
(6 replies)
view more: next βΊ