>
>History of 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 educated. 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 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
> >>
> >> hanged 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." Irish

__________________
Irish---Better to be dead & cool,then alive & uncool!
(Harley Davidson & the Marlboro Man)