HeavyDuty Posted March 19, 2016 Report Share Posted March 19, 2016 (edited) 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 labiodentalfricative '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. Didn't yew!! Edited March 19, 2016 by HeavyDuty Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mojocho Posted March 20, 2016 Report Share Posted March 20, 2016 Interesting, but then why don't the brits use the middle finger as an explicitive? They actually use the middle and the first finger up while facing the back of the hand toward the intended person, kinda like a backward peace sign? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2talltim Posted March 20, 2016 Report Share Posted March 20, 2016 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScubaCinci Posted March 20, 2016 Report Share Posted March 20, 2016 False... http://www.snopes.com/language/apocryph/pluckyew.asp Quote The above-quoted account purporting to offer the historical origins of the obscene middle-finger extended hand gesture (varously known as "flipping the bird," "flipping someone off," or the "one-finger salute") is silly, and so obviously a joke that shouldn't need any debunking. Nonetheless, so many readers have forwarded it to us accompanied by an "Is this true?" query that we are duty bound to provide a bit of historical and linguistic information demonstrating why this anecdote couldn't possibly be accurate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gixxus Christ! Posted March 20, 2016 Report Share Posted March 20, 2016 8 hours ago, ScubaCinci said: False... http://www.snopes.com/language/apocryph/pluckyew.asp So what is the origin? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tigerpaw Posted March 20, 2016 Report Share Posted March 20, 2016 Today the middle finger means "FUCK YOU!", but was actually invented in Golden-Age Athens 2500 years ago, not Medieval times. It originated from Ancient Greek comedy called The Clouds by Aristophanes. In this play, the actors mocked a politician by stating that his competitor had a longer dick. They showed this by running around with their middle finger pointing out from their dick area. It was meant to be stupid. It's meaning changed over time, but always was considered insulting 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScubaCinci Posted March 20, 2016 Report Share Posted March 20, 2016 4 hours ago, CrazySkullCrusher said: So what is the origin? Beats me...Tigerpaw could have it right though there a lot of BS word origins floating around the net and email. I find etymology fascinating though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zx3vfr Posted March 20, 2016 Report Share Posted March 20, 2016 Tiger paw is correct. 99.99% of profanity came 500 years before Jesus was born. Either from Roman guards or as tiger paw stated, insulting political opponents Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tigerpaw Posted March 20, 2016 Report Share Posted March 20, 2016 bwaahaha....I just cut and paste my above response from urbandictionary.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zx3vfr Posted March 21, 2016 Report Share Posted March 21, 2016 Oh just play along Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HeavyDuty Posted March 21, 2016 Author Report Share Posted March 21, 2016 So much for history. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gump Posted March 21, 2016 Report Share Posted March 21, 2016 Golf Gentleman only ladies forbidden. At some point, that lost its flare. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gixxus Christ! Posted March 21, 2016 Report Share Posted March 21, 2016 (edited) 11 hours ago, Gump said: Golf Gentleman only ladies forbidden. At some point, that lost its flare. Also bullshit. Golf comes from an old Scottish word meaning club. The practice of creating acronyms hadn't been invented yet. Edited March 21, 2016 by CrazySkullCrusher Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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