Phuck You

[Homicidalheathen]

The History Of The Middle Finger

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. Isn't history

more fun when you know something about it?

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 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

(I don't know if this is true but I liked it)

[Destroit]

I did know about this, it is indeed true also I learned about it in my history class this semester at Macomb actually. Also, I believe there was a Heineken commercial on the radio (I believe it was Heineken, it was SOME kind of beer) and for whatever reason they explained the history of it, and I was like "wow...finally something on the radio that's correct AND interesting..." It is really fascinating/weird how words and gestures can be spawned by some event in time and then evolve over hundreds of years into something else.

[Head Wreck]

nope you got that wrong.

the middle finger is symbolic of the phalus.

the agincourt thing was an ocourance of the welsh two fingered salute as you can still shoot a bow with one finger and the index. it actually originates before then wehn the anglo saxons used to cut the two fingers of any welsh raider they captured accross the border, escaped archers would wave thier two fingers at the saxons to show that they could still shoot a bow. a shuddering thought as although what we know as the english longbow is a british thing, welsh archers were the ones who employed it and used it at agincourt (welsh archers and a mix of welsh and english footmen).

in another bit of trivia when the first wave of french cavlary were butchered (first by welsh archers, then the ones who made contact were brought down by welsh daggers (a long scuer designed to go through the belly of a horse, through the saddle, and into the knights inarmoured posterior, pinning him into place to bleed out or to be finished with a sledgehammer to the head, completely against the civalric code of combat for killing a horse and killing a knight when he's defenceless), the second wave decided to bugger off and attack the baggage caravans. King richard ordered the execution of remaining french knights.

if you captured a noble back then it was like winning the lottery, a commoner could rise to gentry through this act. so the english footmen refused to. so the welsh dragged the knights and disobedient footmen to the woods and slotted them.

the welsh allways were murdering sociopaths with a penchant for raiding nieghbouring countries for cattle and livestock or just to cause trouble.

[Scary Guy]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_finger

[Homicidalheathen]

Well then according to this......I am suppose to give anyone who looks at me wrong (cause you know, if you glare at someone with evil in your eye it curses them......yah.....) the finger. Then If I get charges brought against me I will claim it is part of my religeon.

[Head Wreck]

[Sybil]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_finger

That was very educational.

hahaaha

..and they even mentioned Dane Cook.

*whispers*

..is it just me, or is that girl "giving the finger" gorgeous?

[Homicidalheathen]

Oh Phuck. LOL