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 the fist used, sometimes called the "bras d'honneur" or Iberian slap, is equivalent to the finger. Italy, Poland, and countries under the influence of Russian culture, such as Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine, also see it as equivalent to the finger, but the majority of young people in these countries use the finger as an insult, which is associated with the Western culture. In Islamic countries and cultures, a gesture involving exposing only the thumb in a vertical orientation – a thumbs up – is used in lieu of the finger to express roughly the same sentiment. A similarly obscene gesture