Point the finger

A man in a suit pointing his finger at you.
There are times when we feel compelled to point the finger.

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Phrase: Point the finger

Today we’re going to do something that your parents probably told you not to do – point the finger.

Yes, it isn’t polite to point at people, especially in public.

However, there are times when we feel compelled to point at someone, and I’m not talking about pointing a finger; I’m referring to pointing THE finger.


When you point the finger at someone, you openly blame them for something that has happened.


When you point the finger at someone, you openly blame them for something that has happened.

Let’s look at a simple family life situation first.

Two young children are playing with a ball in a house.

You can already guess that the combination of children + ball + inside will lead to something being broken.

Well, you’re right.

One child throws the ball and inadvertently breaks some glassware.

When an adult comes running in to see what happened, the other child points the finger and yells, “He did it!”

You’ve been there before.

Perhaps you were the finger pointer or had the finger pointed at you, but either way, you know what it’s all about. 

In professional circumstances, there are times when we have to point the finger.

There are occasions when serious mistakes are made, and the people who made them must be held responsible.

As we looked at earlier, heavy is the head that wears the crown because they have to bear responsibility.

When it comes to governments and company heads, they sometimes try to avoid blame when things go south, but that’s why we have media organizations.

It’s their job to point the finger so that the public knows where to place the blame for poor decisions.  


Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test

This post is understandable by someone with at least a 7th-grade education (age 12).   

On the Flesch-Kincaid reading-ease test, this post scores 73.   

The easier a passage is to read, the higher the score on a scale of 0 – 100. 



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