FACTORALY - E90 HANDS

Episode Date: May 29, 2025

You need hands to hold someone you love. In fact you need hands for all sorts of things. This episode looks at lots of aspects of hands. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello Bruce. G'day Simon. I've noticed you've been saying g'day a lot recently, ever since our episode on kangaroos with the delightful Greg Dwyer. Yes, kangaroos. Yeah they were fun. Very interesting creatures. Yes indeed. I never knew stuff about kangaroos, now I do. And now we do. There you go. We've learned some things. We learn things every week don't we on this. Absolutely we do, yes. Yes, it's not just you guys at home listening and learning, we find stuff out ourselves. So that's what this is basically, it's half an hour of interesting stuff about stuff that may or may not be interesting. Yes, it's like being at school, only fun. Yes, we're the supply teacher that you're actually quite like. Yes, this gentleman here is Mr Fielding.

Hello children. And I'm Mr. Wells, your other substitute teacher. Hello. Good morning Mr. Wells. Good morning everybody. Or whatever time of day you're listening to this episode of Factorally. Yes, exactly. So we're here at Factorally telling you things about stuff. Yeah.

What's the stuff today, Simon? Today's stuff is hands. Hands. Knees and bumps a day. Yes hands. So why are they called hands? What are hands? Who are hands? Yes to all of the above. The origin of the word hands it's another really boring one. It's always meant hand really mm-hmm okay from middle English hand from old English hand from proto West Germanic handu from proto Germanic handus and that has just always meant the thing on the end of your arm did you know a

glove in German is a hand shoe I did know that isn't that fantastic. Did you know that a mobile phone in German I believe is a handy? That's correct. Isn't that great? Yes. So it's basically all the same derivation it's something like the word hand. Yes exactly it's something to do with your hand and the definition of that is the part of the forelimb below the forearm. Now I read that it also needs that opposable thumb. Yes that's right. So it's grippy. It's grippy yes. So if our feet had opposable thumbs they would still not be hands technically because they're feet. So it seems that there's a general agreed

distinction between hands and feet, which is largely to do with what they're for. So the feet are the things at the bottom of those of us who stand upright or the back of us who walk on all fours, which are sturdier, generally bigger, more load bearing and able to carry the weight of a creature standing. Right. Whereas the hands are a bit smaller, a bit more dexterous, a bit more nimble and they have the opposable thumbs as well. Yes. Although you can technically, I mean there are people who can hold their weight by their hands. Well yes, that's true. So that's where the definition gets a little bit blurry.

Yes. But it's a social convention. We all know what they are and therefore we're happy to accept that fact. Yes, we know what a hand looks like. Yes, we do. Exactly. I mean there are so many different sorts of hands. Go on, what sort of hands have you got? There's a sort of hand that helps out in the Wild West. Right? A hired hand. Oh, that kind of hand. Yes, of course. Or on ships. Yes. Or on farms.

Or in a bedchamber. Or... wait, what? A handmaid. Handmaid. Right, fine. Yeah, I was thinking bedhand. Those who wrangle cows. Cow hands. Yes. So the origin of all of that comes from the word handle

Oh does it not as in the thing that you open the door with but the verb to handle? Okay, or to manage or to control something and that in itself is connected to the word hand So to handle something is to manipulate it in some way or other with your hands I get it So a hand a hired hand a hand, a hired hand, a cow hand, a farm hand, they handle the thing that they have been tasked with. Yeah. I found some other words that have to do with hands as well. There are an awful lot of them. It just sort of shows how much we use our hands in everyday life I

suppose. But as well as the ones you mentioned, being handy, someone who's good with their hands, that became useful, that became practical, handy. We have handwriting, handiwork, you get a hand out, you have a hand off, you use a hand saw, you carry a handbag. Someone is handsome, which I found this interesting, that used to mean originally easy to handle, so handsome, easy to handle, handle easy to cope with and then that sort of became easy to look at okay became handsome hand me something a hand me down backhanded cack handed beforehand yes strange that there isn't an afterhand they're all over the place

they are one of the expressions which I I like is being caught red-handed. Oh yes. Which is all to do with poaching and blood. Yeah, because you've still got the blood of your victim. Yes, or murder. So the idea of being caught red-handed, I mean nowadays it doesn't necessarily mean with blood on your hands. No, sure.

It just means like with your fingers in the till or whatever. Caught in the act. Yes, sure. It just means like with your fingers in the till or yes Caught in the act. Yes, exactly Hmm, and I have a lot more as well, which I'll put on the on the blog. Oh the blog. Yes So we have show notes. Hmm. Well, I call them show notes They're basically just a place where you can kind of get lost for a quite a long time On fact orally comm fact orally comm that's it. So, youactorily.com? That's it. So, you know, let your fingers do the walking. Yes.

And navigate over to factorily and look at the blog. Indeed. And you'll find loads more information about the stuff we're gonna be talking about with you today. It's sort of this episode times 10. It contains all of the things that we couldn't possibly squeeze into this half hour episode.

Exactly. I mean, technically, a hand consists of 27 bones, 29 joints, 123 ligaments, 31 muscles, none of which move the fingers, 48 nerves, and 30 arteries. Flipping neck. That's a lot of stuff going on in a hand. There's a lot of stuff. Well, in fact, about a quarter of the activity of your motor cortex of your brain, the bit that controls all the rest of the whole movement of your entire body.

Yeah. 25% of that is just your hands. Really? Yeah. 25% of that is just your hands. Really? Yeah. 25% that's ridiculous. Yeah so 25% of your brain's control of everything that moves in your body is to do with your hands. Wow. A couple of the things you mentioned there I found that I find this staggering. There is not a single muscle in any one of your fingers. Yes, true. They don't operate locally. They operate by the muscles in your forearm, pulling the tendons, which then trigger the movement of your fingers.

I don't know why I'm doing this with my hands to illustrate my point, because this is an audio podcast. I think throughout this podcast, people are going to be doing things with their hands. I didn't know they could do that. Yes, you're probably right. So you can also talk with your hands. Oh, sign language. Yeah, yes. So do you know what the difference is between American sign language and British sign language?

I'd love to think that one of them, you sort of move your hands around with a slightly different accent. Well, kind of, yes. Really? They are two completely different languages. And, you know, much same as like French and Italian. Right. There are some bits which are similar,

and there are some bits which aren't at all. How interesting. But the key difference between American sign language and British sign language is that American sign language is one handed. Is it really so you can I don't know why I'm doing that. No, again. So American sign language, you can you can talk to somebody with one hand, whereas British sign language, you need to. And also there's a sort of body movements and facial movements yeah in fact on American sign language it's a lot more facial rather than body oh is it okay yes yes I'm sort of picturing British sign language it involves quite a lot of sort of your hand touching the other hand or sort of yes making an impactful gesture so it's the dominant hand I

think the dominant hand is the vowels and the other hand is the consonant I think cool hand, I think the dominant hand is the vowels and the other hand is the consonants. Oh really? Cool. But talking of dominant hands, right-handed versus left-handed. Are you right-handed or left-handed? I'm right-handed. So am I. Right. So we have that in common with about 90% of the rest of the population.

Really? Yes. Although it's slightly skewed because 6% of men are left-handed, but 10% of the rest of the population. Really? Yes. Although it's slightly skewed because 6% of men are left-handed but 10% of women are left-handed. Oh really? So they kind of ran that up to it's about 10% of people. Okay. Are left-handed or ambidextrous. I vaguely remember that at a time when left-handedness was seen as very other sinister sinister. Yeah, I was going to use that word exactly. I think I think the word sinister. I can't remember it now might have to look it up.

But I think the word sinister actually comes from the Latin for left or left hand or something like that. That's correct. That is correct. Yes, it was utterly frowned upon you were sort of you were viewed as a as a witch or a heretic or something if you dared to use your left hand and you'd jolly well have it beaten out of you until you learned to use the right one. Well and also that could cause all

sorts of things including stammering. Yes I've heard that. So you know because you're trying to teach your brain to do something that it wouldn't naturally do. Yeah yeah so then I wonder whether that 10 percent of the population that's left-handed, I wonder if it's actually more. It's just that so many of them have learnt to hide it. Oh, interesting. Yes, it's very interesting. I mean, there are loads of products that you can buy if you're left-handed. You just don't think about it. Like zips, for example. Zips are mostly for right-handed people. Yeah, that's right. I mean, you all know about scissors and things like that, but doors are usually hinged to help right-handed people rather than

left-handed because they kind of have the hinges on the right so that you sort of open the door. Yes, okay. That way. Now isn't that interesting? I went to a function the other day at a venue which had double glass doors and without thinking about it I automatically went to open the left door with my left hand rather than my right. Is that a fear of germs? Dunno, maybe it's because I've got a dodgy right shoulder and it doesn't have quite so much strength as the other one, I don't know.

But just instinctively I would have gone to open it with the left hand. How interesting. Hands come in all sizes. I would imagine so. I mean there are little hands and big hands and giant hands. Yeah. And one of the one of the giantest hands that I can think of was a pianist called Rachmaninoff. Oh yes. Oh did he have particularly large hands?

Well he could spread a 12 12 so you can actually do 12 notes and an octave is eight. So imagine a piano keyboard. Yeah. And you imagine an octave, imagine an octave plus another four notes. Wow. That's a lot. And the other guy who did that was Franz Liszt. He could also stretch for 12. But the trouble is they wrote they wrote music for themselves. Yes. And pianists get really upset. Yeah. Because they can't do that whole thing with the stretching 12 notes. Yes. Oh, incredible. There was a theory at one point that pianos used to have narrower keys. So when they sell you can stretch 12 keys. Okay. Well, the keys were narrower

oh that's interesting but they found old pianos that Rachmaninoff and Liszt would have been composing on and the keys are exactly the same width oh really? yeah well that just seems like an unfair advantage doesn't it? it does a bit yeah! I mean I'm talking of musicians actually there. I know of a musician who has his middle finger insured for a million dollars. Oh my goodness. What on earth does he play? Why the middle finger?

He plays guitar. His name's Keith Richards. Oh, right. Okay, yes. I've heard of him. So it's the middle finger of his left hand. Right. And it's insured for a million dollars.

Wow. If he breaks it or anything. Because obviously you can't play guitar without your middle finger of your left hand. I mean you can pluck away with your right hand. Yes. Yes. You can do without it but your left hand is the one that selects the chords. Wow. Well he needs to be really careful when flipping the bird doesn't he? Don't want to overuse it. A

million dollar bird flip. Good flip. Cartoon animals usually don't have all their fingers, do they? No cartoon humans as well. I think every member of the Simpsons cast only has three fingers and a thumb. Except there's one character in The Simpsons that has four fingers and a thumb. Wait, brain racking? I don't know. It's God.

Yes. You're right. It is isn't it? Yeah. Oh, that's interesting. Someone's put a lot of thought into that. Yes. And you know, obviously cartoon characters have three fingers.

Yes, Mickey Mouse, Goofy. There's another sort of person that has three fingers as well. Is there? Yeah. What sort? Generally they're Japanese. Right. And generally they belong to the Yakuza. Okay. Have you ever heard of this thing where the Yakuza chop off one of their fingers to say sorry? No, I haven't. This is called a Shuneyubi. Right, okay. Which means dead finger. Ah. And the idea is if you're in trouble, you kind of show that you're apologetic by chopping off a finger. That's rather extreme. And hopefully saves you from a lot worse punishment.

Right, okay. It's not done very much these, you see it in films occasionally, but it's not done very much these days because the Yakuza have kind of want to kind of step back and not be recognised as such. So they've also stopped some of the tattooing and okay right apparently so I've heard Wow and oh another thing about the Japanese and hands hmm is that they don't allow women to be sushi chefs okay the theory is that women have warmer hands than men is this which not true, and that women therefore won't make decent sushi because they will start to slightly cook the fish because their hands are too hot. Oh for goodness sake. But that's not true, their hands aren't warmer. No, but what is true is

that they don't, there are not that many female sushi chefs. That's, I mean, you can't help wondering whether that's just a little bit of misogyny with an excuse. Well, quite. Speaking of fingers being cut off, how nice did we get here in our lives? I was having a look at hand gestures and all the different symbols that we use with our hands like that one that you just gave me. Thank you. Everyone else will have to guess. There's a legend which I think has been fairly reasonably debunked, but again, apocryphal. It's a nice story. I like it. It's been said that the reason we do that, the reverse V- That looks like victory to me.

Right, but it's the other way around. So the reverse victory sign with the palm facing me, the V sign, as an insult as opposed to the other way around as peace. There have been reports that back in the good old days of Agincourt, archers would be captured and have their two bow string pulling fingers chopped off as punishment. And therefore anyone who hadn't been captured still had those two fingers and they would stand in their ranks holding their bows displaying those two fingers to the enemy as if to say ha ha I've still got my fingers we're going to win. Zero written evidence of the fact that that process ever even happened, let alone that that was the sign they made in response to it.

Although there are a lot of stories about opposing armies where captured prisoners had their thumbs chopped off. Yes that's true, yes, but we don't all walk around sort of sticking our thumb up as a negative thing. So that sort of led me to have a look at different hand gestures and you know these things are very different from culture to culture you know you think here in the West we have the OK sign where you put your thumb and forefinger together your other three fingers upwards. In China I believe that means zero or worthless.

So it's it's very culturally specific but I had a look at a few of these things. I started off with handshaking. What a strange thing to do, to walk up to somebody, grasp their hand and waggle it about a bit. It's just odd. And again, there are cultures who would think that's as strange as we might think touching noses would be. Like young people. Yeah, they don't do that. But yes, handshaking, it's suggested handshaking started in ancient Greece, around the 5th century BC.

And it was there to show the fact that you weren't holding or concealing a weapon. So when you went to have a discussion with someone who was on slightly shaky ground with you, you would outstretch your hand to show that you weren't carrying a knife or a sword or anything like that. Yes. And obviously that's changed over the years to just be a pleasant greeting. Yes. The High Five, where two people slap each other's palms mid-air, has slightly contested origins,

but it was at least popularized if not created by two basketball players in 1977. At least they were the first people to be photographed or documented doing it. The peace sign, so the reverse of what we just talked about with Agincourt, again a lot of these things have sort of possibly been used by other people but weren't documented right in at the first instance. But in January 1941, Victor de la Vallee, the former Belgian Minister of Justice, gave the V sign for victory because it looks like a letter V and then obviously, Western Churchill went on and used it quite a lot. But he used it the wrong way round. He used it the other way around. Yes, which which shows back then, even then, the reverse

V wasn't a bad thing like it is now. It could work either way. So that was V for victory in a military sense. And then when the Vietnam War came along, people started using it ironically, you know, forget military victory, let's have peace. So that's where the two fingers sort of began to be the peace sign, as frequently used by Ringo Starr and others of that ilk. Yes, it's big in the 70s.

Yeah, absolutely. The thumbs up symbol, so making a fist but with your thumb in the air, meaning that's good, goes back to the Roman Empire and gladiatorial contests. So when gladiators would go for a punch-up in the Colosseum or any other amphitheaters, it was down to the crowd to determine whether or not they should be put to death at the end of their contest. And interesting, they did it what I consider to be the wrong way around. Yes. So they would put their thumbs up to show, yes, we want that person to be put to death. Yes. And they would put their thumbs down or just conceal their thumb inside their fist to say, no, he's okay.

I find that fascinating. The idea of a Roman crowd all sticking their thumbs in the air seems totally culturally wrong for that period. But yes, that's where it came from. I've seen film. I've seen documentaries about it. Hmm. Things like Gladiator. Yes, yes, historically accurate documentaries like Gladiator. And then the last one, the OK sign that one I mentioned with the thumb and four finger together, three fingers up, also known as the ring gesture. This goes back again to ancient Greece actually and it was originally a symbol of love. So the thumb and the four finger are

kissing and the ring shape sort of expresses eternal affection. You would actually do that in the same way that you might blow a kiss to someone today. So again, changed a bit over the years but that's where it came from. Oh cool. There's another aspect of hands which pertains to crime. Okay. And that is keeping your hands out of harm's way by putting them in restraints. Alright yeah, handcuffs.

Handcuffs. Yeah. You know, tying your hands up has been around forever. And doing it with metal has been around since the Egyptians. Oh really, yeah. Bonded slaves with their hands together. But the actual sort of police handcuff has only been around since about the 1700s. Okay, right.

And initially they were just basically like a shackle. Yeah. But in 1862, they became adjustable, so that you could arrest people with different sized wrists without hurting them too much. And then in 1912, there was a bloke called George Carney who invented the adjustable swing through double lock handcuff. They're made in America by companies like Peerless.

And they're stainless steel and they double lock. So they have like a ratchet mechanism. Yes. So you can have it set to any wrist. Yeah. And then they lock in position so that they can't get tighter or looser. That sort of ratchety clicky noise that you hear on every cop movie and TV show.

Exactly. And they were invented in the 1860s. Right, as early as that. That surprises me. Talking of hands, do you know what a four inches is? Uh, about 10 centimetres? Yeah, and that's a hand. Oh, as in size measurements? As in a horse. A horse, yes.

So you measure horses by hands and barley corns. Hands and? Barley corns. So a hand is four inches, which is generally the width between the outside edge of your index finger and the outside edge of your little finger. That's why it's called a hand. But it's actually nowadays it's actually four inches. And a barley corn was like one inch long and therefore it was an inch. Brilliant. And if you want to know how big a horse is in hands, the thing that most people know is a police horse or an army horse. And they're usually between 16 and 17 hands high and it's the hands. The thing that most people know is a police horse or army horse. And they're usually between 16 and 17 hands high.

And it's the, it's the height from the ground to the, I think it's to the withers. So where the, where the shoulders meet the neck, right? Okay. There are hands of other things. There are hands of cards. Oh, of course. Yes. That's effectively because of hands. You're holding the cards in your hand. There's hand manipulation of cards as well, like tricks that you can do with your hands with cards. I found a guy online who I just can't believe how he does it. He shows you how to do some of the tricks and even after he's shown you how he does

the tricks you still can't work it out. No, sleight of hand. But I'll put that video in the show notes. Great. We've been primarily talking about human hands because that's our nearest personal experience. But it suddenly occurred to me, what other animals in the world have hands? Obviously the primates. So apes, gorillas, monkeys, chimpanzees, lemurs. All the things that grip stuff. They use tools, they use rocks to smash things. I guess they are hands. Those are definitely hands. So apes and monkeys are sometimes described as four-handed because their feet have an opposable toe which can be used to grip things just as well as the hands can. But going to the second half of the definition, what's it used for? So the

feet are very distinctly on the on the end of the legs, which are there to carry the bulk of the weight of the animal, whilst the things at the front do the manipulation. So people are generally happy to call those at the back feet rather than hands. So what are the things on frogs? You know frogs, do frogs have hands? Frogs have paws. Do they really? Yeah, so this is a little thing I looked into. What's the difference between a hand and a paw? And I don't know why this applies to frogs because I don't think it's true, but generally speaking, a paw, if you think of something like a bear, even a raccoon,

which has very flexible and usable front paws, which look like their hands, they're not quite because they don't have the opposable thumb that's that's the big difference they use the claws at the end rather than the dexterity of the fingers and that seems to be a distinction if there's a creature that climbs a tree by digging its claws into the bark yeah those things are paws if they actually grip the branch those things are hands got it and um the only other animals so obviously primates gorillas apes and yeah but also um koalas oh okay koalas have hands not paws because they have opposable thumbs and actually koalas have two opposable

thumbs and i'd never noticed this i looked at a a picture. Let's have it hang onto pencils. Yes of course it is. We'll throw a picture up on the show notes but if you look at a koala's hand they have very very distinctly they have two thumbs. They have these two little thumbs that stick out quite a lot to the side nearer the wrist than the other three fingers so those are definitely hands not paws but yeah I hadn't realized they have two opposable thumbs, so they're incredibly grippable. Wow. In popular media, hands make a big show. So for example, in songs, there's like Max Bygraves's You Need Hands. Oh right yeah, Willie and the Hand Jive

and then the Beatles of course. I want to hold your hand. Exactly and then there's Grandma's Hands. Right okay yeah. You've got Eric Clapton called Slow Hand. And then films as well. You're going to say Cool Hand Luke aren't you? I was going to, that's one of my favourite films. I know. gonna say Cool Hand Luke aren't you? I was gonna say that's one of my favorite films. I mention it whenever I can and you've got Fists of Fury and things like that. But there's actually one thing I will mention which I want all of our factorialites to have a look at is that there's an episode of The Outer Limits called Demon with a Glass Hand and it stars And it stars Robert Culp, who was in I Spy if you're that old. It's available on archive.org, which is a,

I mean, you think we're a rabbit hole. Archive.org is just a massive, it's got like, it's everything is on there, it's so cool. I heartily support it and encourage other people to do so. So at this point, do you normally come up with, I can't think whether there are that many records about hands. Not a huge number.

The obvious ones are who has the biggest, who has the smallest, et cetera. So the largest hands on a person ever all these things are always going to come back to an American fella called Robert Wadlow yes the very very very tall the tallest man ever he had hands measuring 32.3 centimeters from the wrist to the end of his middle finger sorry did you say 32.3 it's just just over a ruler. From his, oh from his wrist? From his wrist to the tip of his middle finger. Crikey. Isn't it? I mean mine comes up to like 21 centimeters. Yeah. Wow. By comparison the

average hand, the average human hand, is 19.3 centimeters from the wrist to the tip of the finger. So you're slightly above average. Bigger than average. I found I found the longest ever handshake. The longest ever handshake? Yeah, so these two fellas, one of whom was a student at Colorado State University, these guys were called Juan Diaz de Leon, which is a beautiful name, and Matt Holmes. What were the rules for this? Well essentially they had to keep the hands moving. No that's that's what annoys me about this they just held hands. It was a grip it was right hand to right hand so not they weren't sort of standing side by side holding hands they were you know holding the correct hand. They were allowed to take a five minute break every hour but

then that would be deducted from their overall time. But basically 43 hours and 35 minutes these two fellas shook hands for. So nearly two days. Yeah, minus a five minute break every hour. And frankly they did it because they just wanted to break a record. It's something they always felt like doing. They had a look through what records were available. They picked the easiest one that they thought they stood a good chance of accomplishing and that's what they did. And then I came across a fellow called Zion Clark from the USA who is dubbed the fastest man on two hands. A walking on his hands? Yeah, so this gentleman was born without legs

and he's a world renowned athlete and he runs on his hands. Goodness. He holds the record for the fastest 20 meters done on hands. Yes. 4.78 seconds. I don't think I could do that on my feet. No, I don't think I could either. on my feet. No I don't think I could either. 20

meters in just under five seconds and he has you know quite a lot of accomplishments quite a few other records in this related field he does motivational speaking and talks about overcoming hardship and turning your weaknesses into strengths and fascinating fella. Yeah so those are my handy records. Very good. Well, I can see from the clock that the minute hand is reaching the time that we should stop. Oh yes, those hands. Yeah. Yes, I think we've handed out enough facts for today. I think we have. We've given a handful of them.

I think our new facts are in good hands. Yes, indeed. So thank you so much for coming along to listen to us today. We hope you've enjoyed yourselves. If you have enjoyed yourselves, please go and tell all of your lovely nerdy friends about this show so that they can come along and join in the fun.

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Exciting, exciting stuff. Isn't it? So thank you all for coming along. Please do join us again for another fun-filled factual episode of Factorally. Goodbye. Au revoir.