A friend in facebook (one of those that i saw once and thats it) posted the following story:
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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 English longbow 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 bewilder ment of the French, the English ! won a m ajor upset and began mocking the French by waving their middle fingers at the defeated French, saying, See, we can still pluck yew!
Since 'pluck yew' is rather difficult to say, the difficult consonant cluster at the beginning has gradually changed to a labiodentals 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." IT IS STILL AN APPROPRIATE SALUTE TO THE FRENCH TODAY!
And yew thought yew knew every plucking thing!!!!!!!
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However wikipedia does not mention it... so I guess its not true :P
Does mention another salute though.
Mhe still interesting so I'm posting it to save for later
EXP Podcast #737: The Fallout TV Series Debrief
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*Just a typical day in the wasteland.*War never changes - the streaming
television war, that is! This week we do a deep dive on the new Fallout
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2 comments:
Interesting theory, whether or not it's true.
Hmm seems to be an urban legend, and the fact that it is not posted in any trusted website (after googling battle of agincourt middle finger) makes me think that its some elaborate tale to mock once again the French...
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