Pinkie, Little Finger, and Auricular: The Names Behind Your Smallest Digit

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is John from Manhattan.

Hello, John from Manhattan. Manhattan, Kansas?

No, Manhattan, New York. New York City.

All right.

What’s your language question today, John?

All right, well, I’m a middle school science teacher at an independent school here in the city.

And a number of years ago, I had a student who, she liked to ask questions to try and get me off topic, because they know they could.

And so she raises her hand one day, and she says, where did pinkies come from? Or where did they get the name Pinkies?

And I looked at her, and instead of just moving on, I decided I was going to teach her a lesson.

So I looked at her and I said, you know, it’s very interesting that you mention that, because I know the answer.

And I proceeded to tell her that it came from in the Middle Ages in England, when women would dye fabric.

They would move the rings onto their little finger and work the fabric with their hands, and they’d have to keep their little fingers out of the dye.

And since, you know, they’re in England, and they’d pull their hands out of the dye, and all of the fingers on their hand would be whatever color of dye, except their little finger, which stayed pink.

And of course the class all looked at me and they said, oh, okay, really?

And I said, no, and stop asking those questions and let’s move on to something.

You know, we were talking about, you know, the atom or something.

And since then…

So you did tell them that you made that up.

But I worked with these kids. If I ever gave an answer to something that sounded a little far-fetched, they’d kind of look at me and go, is this another pinky story?

And I was like, no, you know, and we’d move on.

But I never could quite figure out where that term actually came from.

John, that is awesome.

That is awesome.

No, I protest because, John, you know, I know you told them that you were only kidding, but we often have to undo the work of well-meaning teachers.

Sorry.

Oh, but come on.

They all knew it was a joke.

They all wave their pinkies at him now?

Oh, yeah.

And when I’ve told this story to other friends of mine, everyone has the same reaction.

They look at me and they go, oh, really?

And no, but no one seems to know where it came from.

But I think you have a career in writing false etymologies.

Did you write that one on the Internet?

No, there are no people doing that.

Don’t do that.

I haven’t done that.

I’ll put the definition up on Wikipedia.

Oh, no, no, no, no.

Grant’s going to have a heart attack here.

I’ll have it down in a half an hour and I’ll get you banned.

But I bet you’re the same guy who wrote that Life in the 1500s email that’s circulating, right?

No, wasn’t me.

Yeah, full of falsehoods, just for the regular.

Well, I love this story, Grant.

Grant’s upset.

Are you upset?

No, no, I’m listening, Marth.

What do you got here, lady?

Well, not a whole lot.

I mean, all we know is that it comes from the Dutch for Littlefinger.

Yeah, and that’s what my wife and I had figured out.

We’d seen that it was a Scandinavian thing, and that was about it.

I believe it’s from Dutch.

But how did it get into English?

Well, I don’t think it showed up into English until the 19th century.

Before then, people were calling them little fingers.

And another fantastic word.

Now, you can present this one to your students, John.

How about another name for your pinky is your auricular.

Auricular.

Oh, that’s good.

Auricular.

Let me spell that for you.

A-U-R-I-C-U-L-A-R.

Auricular.

Now, as a science teacher, do you have any idea why it would be called auricular?

Auricular.

Because you put your finger behind your ear when you want to hear better.

It’s like your ear.

So it hooks like your ear?

If you hook your finger?

I don’t know.

It’s the little finger that you use to clean out your ear.

Oh, okay.

That’s a good one.

I like that.

Yeah, and that’s really true.

You can tell your students the true story there.

Wow, we’ve been all over the map here, John.

Great.

But, yeah.

That’s it.

That’s all we got.

All right.

We’re ready.

Stick that in your ear.

Audi 5000. Talk to you later, buddy.

Okay, thanks a lot.

Thanks, John. This was fun.

So long.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

I’m going to start calling this my auricular ring.

Now, that sounds vaguely naughty, too. Never mind.

So I was just going to call this my auricular ink pen?

What? Oh, because you stick it behind your…

I used it to clean the wax out of my ears.

Do you know what Q-tips were originally called, by the way?

Don’t know.

Speaking of cleaning ears, Q-tips, the original name of Q-tips was Baby Gaze.

G-A-Y-S, baby gays.

Gay had a different meaning back then, you know.

Well, it sure did, and this poor guy invented these little Q-tip-like things to clean his baby’s ears, and they were originally called baby gays, but it changed to Q-tips later on.

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