how many fingers we have and they will say ten. Then ask them which is their first finger and nearly all will unfurl an index finger, thus overlooking the neighboring thumb and relegating it to a separate status. Ask them then to name the next finger along and they will call it the middle finger—but it can only be in the middle if there are five fingers, not four. In the end, even most dictionaries can’t decide whether we have eight fingers or ten. Most define fingers as “one of the five terminal members of the hand, or one of the four other than the thumb.” Because of the uncertainty, even
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