Here's a URL that has a very long list of common phrases. I was looking for origin of "give a fig" which I used to think might mean "give an f-word". Didn't find it. Please tell us if you know that origin.

http://www.businessballs.com/clichesorigins.htm

From James Brigg's "Origin of English Sayings", I got this suggested explanation:
Fig: I don't give fig indicates complete lack of concern about an event. It comes from the Spanish Fico (= Fig) which gave its name to a traditional gesture of contempt made by placing the thumb between the first and second fingers. The gesture was common in Shakespeare's time and was known as The Fig of Spain. The modern-day equivalent is the "V"sign.

Dear max: Perhaps the emphasis was on display of the middle finger.

This use of the middle finger is an Americanism, known in other parts of the world only through films and tv. The equivalent in the UK and, I suspect, the colonies is the index and middle fingers raised with the palm towards the person making the sign. With the palm outwards it means V for Victory.

Bingley

Bingley, this is also my impression. And just to add to the mix, the Brazilian equivalent is what many of us know as the OK sign (tips of thumb and forefinger joined). It involves a precise part of the anatomy that both men and women have. You can imagine the gales of laughter in Brazilian movie theaters when the gesture appears in the occasional American film.

That would be the ears, I take it.

k

hehehe. No, we hear different things. Kinda like cats and dogs. Guess again.

Course it kind o depends on where your head is stuck. They might be real close to each other.

Presumably it would have to be something round-ish. The kneecaps? The ankles?

Bingley

The modern-day equivalent is the "V"sign.

In Greater Britain, of course...

With the palm outwards it means V for Victory.

Until "the hippies" *reinterpreted it into a sign meaning 'peace'...

...and also became a gesture of solidarity which motorcycle riders use to this day (on the road).

"Course it kind o depends on where your head is stuck. They might be real close to each other."

Are you referring to proctocephaly?

proctocephaly

I knew one guy had it stuck so far up he was looking out through his eyeballs.