Elbow taken as six handbreadths; three to the elbow and three from the elbow to the shoulder. Another measure was the "cubit" (from "cubital"). This was taken to be the length of a man's arm from the elbow to the end of the middle finger. Though the elbow is similarly adapted for stability through a wide range of pronation-supination and flexion-extension in all apes, there are some minor differences. In arboreal apes such as orangutans, the large forearm muscles originating on the epicondyles of the humerus generate significant transverse forces on the elbow joint. The structure to resist these forces is
The finger eye. In Greek the gesture was known as the "katapygon" ("κατάπυγον", from "kata" – κατά, "downwards" and "pugē" – πυγή, "rump, buttocks"). In ancient Greek comedy, the finger was a gesture of insult toward another person, with the term "katapugon" also referring to "a male who submits to anal penetration" or "katapygaina" to a female. In Aristophanes's comedy "The Clouds" (423 BC), when the character Socrates is quizzing his student on poetic meters, Strepsiades declares that he knows quite well what a dactyl is, and gives the finger. The gesture is a visual pun on the two meanings of the