Pinky swear

To pinky swear, or to make a pinky promise, is a traditional gesture most commonly practiced amongst children involving the locking of the pinkies of two people to signify that a promise has been made.[1] The gesture is taken to signify that the person can break the finger of the one who broke the promise. The tradition appears to be a relatively modern invention, possibly as a continuation of older finger traditions.[2][3]

Pinky swear

Prevalence worldwide

In the United States, it is most common among school-aged children and close friends and has existed since at least 1860, when Dictionary of Americanisms listed the following accompanying promise:

Pinky, pinky bow-bell,
Whoever tells a lie
Will sink down to the bad place [sic]
And never rise up again.[4]

Pinky swearing has an equivalent in Japan, where it is called yubikiri (指切り, "finger cut-off") and often additionally confirmed with the vow "Finger cut-off, ten thousand fist-punchings, whoever lies has to swallow thousand needles." (指切拳万、嘘ついたら針千本呑ます, "Yubikiri genman, uso tsuitara hari senbon nomasu").[5]

Recently in South Korea, the hooked pinky has been followed by a "seal", wherein the thumbs touch each other while the pinkies are still hooked.[6][7]

In Belfast it is referred to as a "piggy promise".[2]

In Italy a similar tradition is called "giurin giurello" or "giurin giuretto".

gollark: I read it before then, but still. English at school is very evil that way.
gollark: 1984 is actually part of the English GCSE course at my school (and/or exam board or whatever, not sure how that works). It's amazing how picking apart random bits of phrasing or whatever for hours on end ruin your enjoyment of a work.
gollark: Vaguely relatedly I think 1984 is entering the public domain next year. Copyright lasts for an excessively long time in my opinion.
gollark: Okay, but if you're talking about real-world examples I don't see why it's remotely relevant to say that the author of a book vaguely relating to those real-world examples believed X.
gollark: But why do his *beliefs* actually matter?

References
  1. Radiography of the Upper Extremities. CE4RT. 2014.
  2. Roud, Stephen (2010). The Lore of the Playground: One Hundred Years of Children's Games, Rhymes and Traditions. Random House. ISBN 9781905211517.
  3. Roud, Steve (October 29, 2010). "The state of play". The Guardian.
  4. "Pinky". Bartlett's Dictionary of Americanisms. googlebooks. 1860. Retrieved 2013-05-25.
  5. Daijirin
  6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28pUzpLVpYo
  7. "The Korean Promise 👍"약속" (yaksok) | K-Drama Amino". aminoapps.com. Retrieved Aug 6, 2020.
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