- Why do we cross our fingers to wish someone luck,
- Why do people pretend to spit on the end of their fingers to signify they are using pretend pen/pencil
- Why cant we tickle ourselves
Crossing the first two fingers is a good luck sign recognised around the world. It is, however, not so common in Buddhist and Muslim cultures, suggesting that the symbol's origin is Christian and was imported to Asian countries
There is no reliable evidence to support this, but one theory goes that during the various times when Christianity was illegal, the crossing of fingers was a secret sign for Christians to recognise each other.
Yet whilst the Sign of the Cross has evolved into a good luck symbol and retained its Christian meaning, Fingers Crossed has lost any Christian connection.
This change of emphasis may have begun during the so-called 'Hundred Years War' between France and England (1337-1457). An archer would cross his first and second fingers, pray or wish for luck, and then draw back his longbow string with those same fingers.
Another theory suggests that the sign pre-dates Christianity, when it was believed that benign spirits dwelt at the intersecting point of the cross, as in the Solar Cross. In Europe, the sign was made by two people; the first to make the wish and the second to support it. Linking their fingers firmly would squeeze and energize the spirits into beneficial action.
In China, crossing the index and middle fingers is the sign for the number ten, which happens to coincide with the Chinese and Japanese written character for ten. (The origin of this character is usually, yet erroneously, explained as two lines crossing to symbolise the four main directions, which in turn expressed the concept of completeness and by association all the fingers, i.e. ten. However, this seems a confused version of its actual origin. It derives from a depiction of a sewing needle with thread passing through the eye, and was used as a substitute for the more complex character , meaning 'hands together', i.e. ten fingers.)
The Roman numeral for ten (decem) is X, so one might expect that when deaf people communicate in sign language, crossed fingers spell the value ten or the alphabet letter X. But that is not the case. Deaf people sign ten with two actions (to mimic a '1' and a '0') and the letter X is signed with a curved index finger.
Crossed fingers in Swedish sign (Svenska Handalfabetet) do spell the letter 'X' but in other alphabets, the sign spells the letter R in English, Я (ya) in Russian (Cyrillic), (ra) in Japanese (hiragana), and the first half of (ss) in Korean (Hangul).
So after reading all this i still dont know exactly why we cross our fingers but it was interesting to find out this much.
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