The history of the middle finger

       
     
   
   
     
    I love these educational  e-mails.  It is so much better than all the darn jokes and  political crap that goes around.  
                             
   
            
                   Isn't history more fun when you  know something about it?   
    
    
       
      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.        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.
Thanks Bernie