Genia's Blog: A History Lesson to share

December 16, 2004

A History Lesson to share

This came thru my email today and since I thought it was interesting and I don't have anything to really blog about today here's the lesson:

HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE FINGER

or 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! "PLUCK YEW!"

Since 'pluck yew' is rather difficult to say, the difficult consonant
cluster at the beginning has gradually changed to a labiodentals fricative ?Ǭ?F?Ǭ?, 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 ?� !

So now you know.

By the way, I'm still working on my "100 Things to do in 1001 Days" list. This is not as easy as it seems and I'm really having a good think over it. I'm more then half way done now, so hopefully tomorrow or Sunday I'll have it posted and started working on it.

Posted by Genia at December 16, 2004 04:37 PM

Comments

Wow . . . I didn't know this about the finger salute!

Posted by: Lola Lee at December 18, 2004 09:16 AM