Giving the Finger

Before the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, the French,
anticipating victory over the English, proposed to
cut off the middle finger of all captured English
soldiers. Without the middle finger it would be
impossible to draw the renowned English longbow
and therefore they would be incapable of fighting
in the future.

This famous weapon was made of the native English
Yew tree, and the act of drawing the longbow was
known as "plucking the yew" (or "pluck yew").
Much to the bewilderment of the French, the English
won a major upset and began mocking the French by
waving their middle fingers at the defeated
French, saying, "See, we can still pluck yew!
&quo ;PLUCK YEW!"

Since 'pluck yew' is rather difficult to say, the
difficult consonant cluster at the beginning has
gradually changed to a labiodental fricative 'F',
and thus the words often used in conjunction
with the one-finger-salute!

It is also because of the pheasant feathers on the
arrows used with the longbow that the symbolic
gesture is known as "giving the bird."
And yew thought yew knew everything

plucking interesting

Great imagination you go there

TweetyBird said:

:LOL: :LOL:

That's wrong - for a start you use two fingers to shoot a bow and arrow, and that's where the 2-Finger Up yours came from. No one really knows where teh middle came from.

Furthermore, the word "Fuck" is a Norse (Viking) word for Sex, and Shit is the Viking word for Poo - That's all those swear words are, and that's the truth and

Spookymuffin said:

That's true - I watched a FANTASTIC program on this just before Christmas on the BBC - im not really one 4 history documentaries etc, but this was fascinating. The Professor who hosted the program mentioned this (about the 'V' sign) and went in2 some lenghty detail about it.

Anyone who was caught by the French would immeadiately have their 2 shooting fingers chopped off, as these were deadly acurate shootists, and the damage they could inflict was absolutely phenomenal (u should see how easily these arrows pierced steel and chain-link armour: bloody scary!) Add 2 this the weight of said armour...and u have a living nightmare2 contend with.

Imagine not being able 2 see very well, not being able 2 move quickly because of the weight of your protection, adda little laboured breathing - and u are supposed 2 fight a victorious fight. Many soldiers died by simply falling down in2 the mud and not being able 2 get back up - their armour being so heavy they literally drowned as the sodden field flooded their helmets...

But back 2 the 'V' sign - the English used 2 taunt the French by giving them a 2 fingered salute - ie: waving their shooting fingers 2wards the oppostition as if 2 rub it in that they were going 2 die at their hands very shortly...

Was truly fascinating stuff!
[This message was edited Fri Jan 16 16:36:40 PST 2004 by bananacologne]