"Plucking the Yew"

[Warph]

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 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 w/ the longbow that the symbolic gesture

is known as "giving the bird."

And "yew thought yew" knew everything

Isn't history more fun when you know something about it?

[Warph]

True story, by the way..... I don't know about you all in Kansas, but I sure see a lot of those dudes in cars, (must be English), giving other cars (must be frenchman) the one-finger-salute when I'm driving I-17 and I-10!