Should I stick my pinkie finger out when I drink tea?

Every week I am tagged on Instagram in photographs of a smiling person drinking tea accompanied by the hashtags #pinkiesout and #pinkiesup which has prompted this article.

“Is it cute?”                 “No.”

“Does it make me look posh?”             “No.”

“Is this the correct way to hold the tea cup?”       “No.”

No, no, no, no, no. I have to be firm with you all here. Sticking your finger out when drinking tea doesn’t make you look cute in your photographs or indeed that you appear like a refined tea drinker. Why am I being so strict with this? Well whenever I tell you the myths behind this phenomenon has come from you won’t be so quick to raise your little finger into the air. The source of it can be derived from cups without handles, dirty servants, picking one’s nose and sexually transmitted diseases!

What are the myths behind this?

It has been said that sticking your little finger into the air when drinking tea makes you appear elegant and regal. This myth has come from two things whenever the upper classes has servants. The first was that the masters of the house thought their servants were unclean and therefore didn’t want to touch anything they handled so tried to use as few fingers as possible when eating the food.

Another myth includes when tea was first brought to England it was consumed from small bowls without handles. They were so small in fact that you could only hold with the first three fingers meaning your other fingers stuck out. Of course nowadays cups have evolved so you no longer need to do this.

When in court, if a lady saw someone she was sexually attracted to she would stick out her little finger to indicate her interest in him. Of course, this was in the days before mobile phones so it was a discrete nod so that the pair knew and could arrange to sneak off later if they so wished.

Finally, in some countries to stick your pinkie finger into the air could indicate that you have a sexually transmitted disease! In French court circa 17 century indicated that they had syphilis!

There are a whole host of myths, some more believable than others, around the rather large issue about your smallest finger. All you need to know is keep it tucked in!

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