Monday, November 20, 2006

The finger...

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
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 you thought you knew everything !

1 comment:

Muhammad said...

salaams, came here from the Muslim Blogger Webring.

Your posts a re freakin Hilarious :) Keep it up.

Wslm.

M.
http://front-line.blogspot.com
http://karim.co.za/blog/