The middle finger and Yew

I have no idea if this is totally true however it is such a well written explanation of giving the bird and the use of the middle finger I had to post.

From an Email author unknown:

Well, now......here's something I never knew before, and now that I know it, I feel compelled to send it on to my more intelligent friends in the hope that they, too, will feel edified.

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 bewilderment of the French, the English won a major upset, and they 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 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 yew thought yew knew every plucking thing ...

a reply to: 727Sky

The major problem with that story is the English longbowmen were actually Welch. I remember that from some documentary series.

a reply to: 727Sky

That's a funny story, but it was first broadcast on NPR "Car Talk"

snopes: pluck-yew

The military aspects of this account are similarly specious. Despite the lack of motion pictures and television way back in the 15th century, the details of medieval battles such as the one at Agincourt in 1415 did not go unrecorded. Battles were observed and chronicled by heralds who were present at the scene and recorded what they saw, judged who won, and fixed names for the battles. These heralds were not part of the participating armies, but were, as military expert John Keegan describes, members of an "international corporation of experts who regulated civilized warfare." Several heralds, both French and English, were present at the battle of Agincourt, and not one of them (or any later chroniclers of Agincourt) mentioned anything about the French having cut off the fingers of captured English bowman.

a reply to: beyondknowledge2

It was mandated in the UK, not just wales

When was archery mandatory in England? 1252 Archery was incredibly important in the Middle Ages that archery training was even written into the law. England established the first medieval archery law in 1252, requiring all men between the ages of 15 and 60 to be trained in archery

www.johnmooremuseum.org...

Thats why you see so many areas called "Butt" in thre UK, it was the practice range in most if not every town

Yea and the next guy will say it was a license to fornicate under consent of the king…

All are as absurd as the next. As an etymologist, I can assure you we haven’t the foggiest where the word came from, best guess is Dutch or German, however you have to consider just how much we use that word, compared to who would dare write it down to give us any real etymological evidence. So instead, you get all these Monty Python type stories because each is as likely and unlikely as the next.

a reply to: AlexandrosTheGreat

When I was a kid I just assumed that my generation made those words up.

It was quite shocking to hear the older generation talking like us.

I'd heard that about the two fingers we English stick up to people we aren't best pleased with.

Pretty sure it was apocryphal though.

originally posted by: AlexandrosTheGreat
Yea and the next guy will say it was a license to fornicate under consent of the king…

All are as absurd as the next. As an etymologist, I can assure you we haven’t the foggiest where the word came from, best guess is Dutch or German, however you have to consider just how much we use that word, compared to who would dare write it down to give us any real etymological evidence. So instead, you get all these Monty Python type stories because each is as likely and unlikely as the next.

Lol, you should definitely be quite unhappy with the funny little story.
I always heard that the country of Fah had lost their
King, so they all wandered around, desperately searching for the fahking.