History of the middle finger

[Shee_Rookie]

Just something I came across and thought was pretty good:

 

Giving the Finger

 

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 the English 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 changed to a

labiodental fricative 'F,' and thus the words often used in conjunction

with the one-finger-salute!

 

Also, because of the pheasant feathers on the base of the arrows used in

conjunction with the longbow, this symbolic gesture is known as flipping

the bird.

 

(And yew thought yew knew everything!)

[PUSH THE THROTTLE]

Amazingly enough I heard that last week on the radio atleast the finger part anyway. Pluck yew is new. Pretty interesting.

 

But tell me where did the saying "sit and spin" while flipping the bird come from?

[rockgc9]

That is weird because I learned learned about that last night in my college course.

[STLBILL]

Hi guys:

 

Indeed. A good repository for information like this is:

 

The Straight Dope

 

They take requests but have yet to answer the one I want to know:

 

Where does the term cockpit come from and does it have anything to do with the fact that for many decades airplane pilots were predominately male.

 

 

-Bill

[The Rebel]

That is where we fight our game cocks, in the cock pit...

[broke]

I make it a rule to not pull my cock out anywhere where it becomes cocks. I guess the fella just likes to be the only one in the room.

[sp1tekiller]

Haha, that's pretty intersting.