Finger Counting, or Dactylonomy, is the art of counting along one's fingers. Though marginalized in modern societies by Arabic numerals, formerly different systems flourished in many cultures, including educated methods far more sophisticated than the one-by-one finger count taught today in preschool education.
Finger counting can also serve as a form of manual communication, particularly in marketplace trading – including hand signaling during open outcry in floor trading – and also in games such as morra.
Finger counting varies between cultures and over time, and is studied by ethnomathematics. Cultural differences in counting are sometimes used as a shibboleth, particularly to distinguish nationalities in war time. These form a plot point in the film Inglourious Basterds, by Quentin Tarantino, and in the novel Pi in the Sky, by John D. Barrow.
Read more about Finger Counting: Sports, Historical Counting
Famous quotes containing the words finger and/or counting:
“God, I am caught in a snare!
I know not what fine wire is round my throat;
I only know I let him finger there
My pulse of life, and let him nose like a stoat
Who sniffs with joy before he drinks the blood.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“But counting up to two
Is harder to do....”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)