Is it less rude to point with your hand than finger?

Speakers in both groups pointed ... starkly: The Yupno participants used non-manual pointing (nose- and head-pointing) numerically more often than manual pointing, whereas the U.S. participants stuck unwaveringly to index-finger pointing...

Well, that’s definitely not it. Pointing at a person with any finger is rude. Gestures that use your whole hand or a clear verbal description — such as a name — are always preferred. For everything el...

In much of the world, pointing with the index finger is considered rude or disrespectful, especially pointing to a person. Pointing with the left hand is taboo in some cultures. Pointing with an open hand is considered more polite or respectful in some contexts.

Prior work indicates that pointing in Bengali interaction carries social meaning: an open-hand gesture may signal politeness when addressing elders, while a single-finger point can be perceived as disrespectful (Uddin, 2019).

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It is not rude to point at things, but it’s rude to point at people. Or at least sometimes — it really depends on where you live. If you grew up in the United States, you were probably instructed by a number of adults to not point at others.

Pointing straight at someone with a straightened index, closed fingers, and horizontal, straightened arm (from the shoulder) is the most accusatory version of pointing, especially at someone’s face. On the contrary, an open hand, facing up, with bent elbow, gesturing towards someone’s torso is much less accusatory and much more designating (it has a "For instance, this person/thing…" meaning).

These alternatives include pointing with an elbow or fist; with the thumb or with the index finger bent back; with fingers of the pointing hand folded over each other into a wad; with a pout of the lips, wrinkle of the nose, or tongue pressed between the teeth. Blust—who has documented these variants in detail—terms this varied class of behaviors “avoidance deixis” [4] Zooming out, what all these methods of avoidance deixis have in common is that they are less “pointy” than prototypical pointing is.

1 reason not to point, I will poke a digit toward the Golden Rule and single out the fact that it is unpleasant to be pointed at. Further, I will suppose that within and behind and beyond this unpleasantness is a fundamental existential terror. Raymond Tallis crisply defines the dynamic in a book titled Michelangelo’s Finger. ☛ ... Why is it so rude to point at someone, even if the action is not meant to be cruel or demeaning, is not accompanied by laughter, even when the pointing finger is not guiding jeers to their target, allocating blame, picking us out of a reluctant crowd for some unpleasant, dangerous, or humiliating task?