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?
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!