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:
“Over the water come
Children from homes and children’s parks
Who speak on a finger and thumb,
And the masked, headless boy.”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)
“If all power is in the people, if there is no higher law than their will, and if by counting their votes, their will may be ascertained—then the people may entrust all their power to anyone, and the power of the pretender and the usurper is then legitimate. It is not to be challenged since it came originally from the sovereign people.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)