Obscene gesture

This gesture is also used similarly in Indonesia, Turkey, Korea, China, Mongolia, Hungary (called "fityisz"), South Slavic countries (shipak/šipak) and Romania ("ciuciu").

The first, more innocuous usage of the gesture in Italy and the Mediterranean is deployed for apotropaic or superstitious purposes, as a way to ward off bad luck or the "evil eye".

The second usage of the gesture, also found in Italy and other Mediterranean and Latin countries (including Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, France, Greece, Portugal, Spain, and Uruguay)[4][5][6][7] is instead obscene, disrespectful, and insulting.

[citation needed] In Iranian culture, a similar gesture is used to represent "Dirt on your head", a verbal insult that is often used, implying that the receiver did something idiotic, or can't do something so easy, or just to humiliate.

In some African and Caribbean countries, a similarly obscene gesture is extending all five digits with the palm facing forward, meaning "you have five fathers" (thus calling someone a bastard).

[citation needed] In Elizabethan England, this gesture was performed by placing the tip of the thumb behind the front teeth and flicking it forward.

While widespread use of the OK gesture has granted it an international connotation of assent, it also bears negative, vulgar, or offensive meanings in parts of the Middle East and the Mediterranean regions.

[12] In contrast to Japan's use of the expression to represent coins and wealth, the gesture's "O" shape stands for "zero" meaning "worth nothing" in France, Belgium, and Tunisia.

Several notable companies and officials have been pressured into formal apologies or other types of responses when the gesture was found in their materials, where it likely appeared unintentionally.