I was watching tv when during the show one of the characters said to the other "cross your fingers". Crossing your fingers is mainly an expression that many use as a way to hope for good luck in something. However, this made me think, what is the origin of this gesture?

If you look around the net you will see many sources. Now I will not say one is more accurate than the other, however, I will just use some paragraphs from different sites.

"A gesture made by crossing the index and middle fingers such that the middle finger overlaps and intertwines the index finger, which can be used to signify one's hope that something should succeed (compare to the phrase "Keep your fingers crossed."). According to OldSuperstitions.com, this stems from the superstition that "Bad luck is trapped at the point where the two fingers meet so when we cross our fingers, we stop the bad luck from escaping and allow our wishes to come true.". However, if placed behind one's back, the gesture takes on an entirely different meaning: it is then normally used to indicate that the user secretly wishes for something contrary to what is being stated or going on, or that a lie is being told. This usage is often seen in dramatic terms."... from Wikipedia.

"Charles Panati has a nice article on crossing one's fingers as a sign of luck or making a wish. He traces it back to pre-Christian times, when the cross was a symbol of unity and benign spirits dwelt at the intersection point. A wish made on a cross was a way of "anchoring" the wish at the intersection of the cross until the wish was fulfilled.

Panati says this superstition was popular among many early European cultures. It originally took two people. A comrade or well-wisher placing his index finger over the index finger of the person making the wish, the two fingers forming a cross. The one person makes the wish, the other empathizes and supports. Over centuries, the custom was simplified, so that a person could wish on his own, by crossing his index and middle fingers to form an X. But traces remain--two people hooking index fingers as a sign of greeting or agreement is still common in some circles today.

Panati comments, "Customs once formal, religious, and ritualistic have a way of evolving with time to become informal, secular, and commonplace." Thus, friends crossing fingers evolved (Panati says "degenerated") to crossing one's own fingers, and ultimately to the stock phrase, "Keep your fingers crossed," with no actual finger-crossing at all. "... from Panati's book In Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things.

I am sure you can find more information if you looked, but when I read these things, I also think of breaking the wishbone of a chicken or a turkey. The wishbone looks like two fingers crossed, doesn't it? And breaking the bone, with the one getting the bigger piece, also is considered lucky.

I also found out that crossing the fingers is not so common in our cultures, which is true as as far as I know, unless someone knows about an expression in Arabic or Indian or Persian.

While looking at this gesture's origin, I also found something interesting that might remind people of my origins (for those long time readers), which is..

Do penguins have knees?

And the answer " After examining these cute, but bizarre, looking birds it certainly appears that they do not have knees. Their feet just seem to stick out of their body without any joints at all. However, if you murder one (DON'T DO THIS, ESPECIALLY YOU FORZA AND BOGHAZI), rip its body in half, dig through the feathers and gore, and wipe away the blood, you will see that they do indeed have knees. The reason they don't appear to have them is because their legs are usually tucked under their body and covered in feathers. If you watch them when they jump into water, you can see their legs and knees."... from http://www.thealmightyguru.com/AskAGuru/2003-12.html.

So you see dear readers, if you do not wonder, you will not find answers, and if I did not exist in this blog-o-sphere, you would not know about these things now, would you?

Purgatorian Post #882