Topic awaiting preservation: History of the finger (humour) (Page 1 of 1)

Thought you guys would like this....

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 for a man to draw the renowned English longbow and therefore he 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! "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 are mistakenly thought to have something to do with an intimate encounter.

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.


Sanity is optional... (and so is clothes!)

Wolfen's Sig Site

how cool. any idea how valid this might be?

Where did you find this?

I always love learning the history of sayings/gestures, but there are so many bogus stories out there that are made purely for the sake of humor...

Unfortunately ...

ouch... I just thought it was a funny story that I got in an email.

the "pluck yew" was an obvious fabrication, but I thought maybe there could be something to the actual finger part.

oh well. =)

I thought the F word was from Fornication Under Consent of the King signs people used to have to hang on their doors while making love because you had to get consent to have a child in ye olde days.

Sorry.

Snopes is a wonderful thing.

wes u blow, i hate snopes i hate it.


Who'cha talking about willis?

Ack, no - the fornication under the consent of the king, and for unlawful carnal knowledge are both very silly fabrications from well after the fact.

fuck is an old old word, that - like any word in the english language - has a long mutational histroy.

damn...
DL, you always ruin everything...

*takes down FUCK poster from door*

You don't know anything, we need to bring in our resident FUCK expert.

<loudspeaker> Mr. Milker, please report to the profanity deck.. </loudspeaker>


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