{"id":12105,"date":"2016-02-23T14:12:38","date_gmt":"2016-02-23T14:12:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/blog\/?p=12105"},"modified":"2016-02-23T14:12:38","modified_gmt":"2016-02-23T14:12:38","slug":"pinkies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=12105","title":{"rendered":"Pinkies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/images\/blog\/fingers.gif\" width=\"208\" height=\"208\" align=\"right\" style=\"margin:0 0 10px 10px;\" alt=\"Finger names\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>What do you call your smallest finger?<\/p>\n<p>I call it my little finger, but I hear more and more people in the UK calling it their <strong>pinkie \/ pinky<\/strong>, which I thought was exclusively used in North America. Is this name used in some dialects of English in the UK, or is this an example of American influence?<\/p>\n<p>[Addendum] The word pinkie apparently comes from Dutch, via Scots. It was first recorded as meaning little finger in John Jamieson\u2019s <em>An Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language<\/em> in 1808. It comes from the Old Dutch phrase <em>pinck ooghen<\/em> (pink eye = half-shut or peering eye), which is the root of the modern Dutch verb <em>pinkogen<\/em> (to half close the eyes or squint). The modern Dutch word for little finger is <em>pink<\/em>, the diminutive of which is <em>pinkje<\/em> [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.worldwidewords.org\/qa\/qa-pin1.htm\">source<\/a>]. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.grammarphobia.com\/blog\/2011\/12\/pink.html\">Other etymologies<\/a> are available.<\/p>\n<p>Anatomical names for the fingers are:<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; 1st finger (thumb)<br \/>\n&#8211; 2st finger, digitus secundus or digitus II<br \/>\n&#8211; 3rd finger, digitus tertius, digitus III, digitus medius<br \/>\n&#8211; 4th finger, digitus quartus, digitus IV, digitus annularis, digitus medicinalis<br \/>\n&#8211; 5th finger, digitus quintus, digitus V<\/p>\n<p>Others names for the fingers include:<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Thumb<br \/>\n&#8211; Index finger, pointer finger, forefinger, trigger finger<br \/>\n&#8211; Middle finger, bird finger, long finger<br \/>\n&#8211; Ring finger<br \/>\n&#8211; Little finger, baby finger, pinky<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.yourdictionary.com\/finger\">http:\/\/www.yourdictionary.com\/finger<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Do you use other names for fingers?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What do you call your smallest finger? I call it my little finger, but I hear more and more people in the UK calling it their pinkie \/ pinky, which I thought was exclusively used in North America. Is this name used in some dialects of English in the UK, or is this an example [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104,10,78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english","category-language","category-words-and-phrases"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12105\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}