[prionassembly]

I picked up the tenting-my-fingers from a boss I really admired -- he had both the technical-academic and the business-selling chops to the highest degrees. In my experience it does make people listen to you longer, even if you pause longer to think and so on. But this is likely to be culture-bound.

[aksss]

Was that boss Mr. Burns?[0]

Cant help but think of him when people do that. It’s also prescribed to people as a confidence-booster, so it makes me a little more skeptical of someone when they pull that, ‘specially with a contemplative pause.

[0] https://images.app.goo.gl/AerFJgpZVkiE8rrf7

[yesenadam]

Hmm funny, but that link hijacked my back button. As I clicked BACK for the third time, I imagined the programmer of the page looking contentedly down on me from above, with tented fingers...

Ok so surely "contented" isn't anything to do with finger tents?! ... Apparently it's from the Latin contentus, from continere "to hold together, enclose".[1]

"Sense connection of "contained" and "satisfied" probably is that the contented person's desires are bound by what he or she already has"

That does sound more than accidentally related to hand-tenting! You are actually displaying your enclosure, your container.

https://www.etymonline.com/word/content

[1] Spanish has "contener" – to contain, include, control, repress, hold back. Corresponding to contentus is "contenido" – contained, held back, (noun) contents, (adj) reserved, restrained.