h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Okay, sorry for lashing out at you guys. Anyway, do you know why holding out your middle finger is considered 'offensive' & 'humiliating'? There is history about that. Any answers?

Something to with longbowmen having their middle fingers cut off during battle so they couldn't fire their arrows?

Or perhaps slightly more unsavoury.

Before the introduction of quilted Andrex, the middle finger was the one used to....erm, tackle those hard to reach areas after ablutions were completed. The hand was then of course washed.

Waving this symbolicly 'dirty' finger at an enemy was of course a gross insult. The greeks have an open handed 'Talk to the hand' type gesture which is in effect smearing excretia in the face of the adversary, much the same idea.

you bad

Don't they still do that in some places? Apparently in I think Dubai (probably wrong but hey) there is nothing to use but your hands, and since most people use their left this is seen as the dirty hand. They take great offence to people eating with their left hands and don't even think about a handshake.

I would guess that probably is only true in the most remote desert regions. Since Dubai now has the most expensive and posh hotel on Earth, has built three custom sets of islands and now has the world's only indoor ski resort, I bet they have indoor plumbing and toilet paper now as well.

Oh, but yes, it is customary to not use your left hand in greeting or passing anything to others.

While it may not be directly religious, I believe the left-hand thing is islamic in origin and linked to the cleansing ritual (cleanse with your left, eat with your right).

Pretty sensible, too, especially in dry regions without easy access to copious water (& soap) - but plenty of sand? -ouch.

It's ingrained in everyday life and it will no doubt be quite a few generations before fading out - if at all.

Does anyone know of the same or similar taboos elsewhere in the world?

RtB

btw, it's not only Dubai. It's all over at least that part of the world.

Hey, sorry folks for getting serious - forgot we're in useless facts!

RtB

If you join all the eyes of the creatures featured on the Nazca lines, you are left with an irregular shape which, when superimposed over the global positions of the pyramids, stonehenge and Ayres Rock, doesn't match at all.

However, if you take the same lines, fast-forward a few million years allowing for continental drift, wiggle it a bit and stand back and squint - it sorta fits.

What's a Nazca line?

Nazca lines are big lines tracing out shapes near Nazca in Peru. See A11950175 .

As opposed to the Nazca plate west of South America, which isn't where Nazca is.

Sir Norman Foster got the idea for London's Gherkin while in the bath.

Clara Blandick the actress who played Auntie Em in The Wizard of Oz committed suicide in 1962 using sleeping pills, with a plastic bag tied over her head. She was 81-years-old and suffering from crippling arthritis.

In Norway, death metal bands have recently started going around burning churches to show their alleigance to satan. In one of the recent death metal concerts, the leader of a different band walked up on the stage while the band was playing and killed the lead singer by shooting him in the face, beat all the other band members to near death, and stabbed the drummer 11 times in the chest.
Just to prove he was more evil.
Sick.
PWT

Really ???

Really.
PWT