Oldsailor65 Loc: Iowa

History of The Middle Finger

Before the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, the French,
anticipating victory over the English, proposed to cut
off the middle finger of all 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 you")

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!"

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!

XXX Loc: Somewhere north of the Mason-Dixon

I had heard that before

Oldsailor65 Loc: Iowa

So....want yer money back?

XXX Loc: Somewhere north of the Mason-Dixon

Yea with interest.

XXX Loc: Somewhere north of the Mason-Dixon

To tell you the truth. Around here we say pluck you instead of " f**k you " because of that. It doesn't sound as bad.

Oldsailor65 Loc: Iowa

I'm not interested

XXX Loc: Somewhere north of the Mason-Dixon

Too bad