Pain in the pollex - Telegraph The dexterity most of us display when pecking out a message on a smartphone is in no danger of being mistaken for that of a Glenn Gould performing the Goldberg Variations. Perhaps our very cack-handedness does the damage, for, as we report today, half the messaging population has gone down with "smartphone thumb" (or pollex audisapientitis, as doctors may prefer to call it). Yet when the nation knitted for victory, purling and plaining endless mufflers for our boys in foreign fields, did knitters" finger cramp their efforts? When Christmas came, did a thousand apple-cheeked Norfolk turkey-pluckers go down with pluckers" thumb? Perhaps they did. So it is heartening to learn that "thumbells" are now available to provide weight-training for the most wimpish digit. Rippling-muscled thumbs will soon be able to kick sand into the face of the most daunting smartphone.