Fuck you history

[awayatc]

Before the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, the French, anticipating victory over the English, proposed to cut off the middle finger of all captured soldiers. Without the middle finger it would be impossible for the English soldiers to draw the renowned English longbow and therefore incapable of fighting in the future. The famous bow was made of the English Yew tree and the act of drawing the longbow was known as "plucking the yew" or "pluck you". Much to the bewilderment of the French, the English won the battle and began mocking the French by waving their middle fingers at the defeated French and saying "We can still pluck yew. Pluck you". 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 that yew knew everything.

[hayd3n]

fuck you!!!

[retro asian]

I fart in your general direction...

[maybe]

Ohh:clap::clap:

[Nasty]

Always love a good history lesson!!

[Pwalo]

That's a lovely story, and the French (and presumably others) were known to remove the first two fingers from the draw hand, but I do believe the actual F word supposedly had it's origin from an earlier period of history.

Presumably the English also did it at Crecy and Poitiers.

[cooneyr]

Read the same thing about archers waving their fingers in the air as an act of defiance - cause they still had them - when we first went to Sweden (Stockholm Military museum I think). The Swedes were to polite to talk about the plucking the yew bit though :innocent:

On another note the Swedes early nuclear bomb work was hilarious - alloy canister with a champion spark plug (dont remember what model) screwed in the top.

Cheers R

[NighthawkNZ]

http://www.snopes.com/language/apocryph/pluckyew.asp

[vifferman]

It's a nice story, but the use of the middle finger as a rude gesture is much older than that - it goes back to pre-Roman times.
The word "fuck" actually used to be used to describe the strong beating movement big birds like falcons made with their wings when taking off.
EDIT: Just checked Nighthawk's link, and it says the same thing about the gesture. Nice to know I was right (I usually just make shit up...)

[No FX]

Pluck this thread Im goin' home...

[idb]

It's all drawing a rather long bow I reckon.

[scumdog]

It's all drawing a rather long bow I reckon.

And would need another arrow in your quiver..

[idb]

And would need another arrow in your quiver..

The French being the French...I bet they looked very fletching in their uniforms.

[scumdog]

The French being the French...I bet they looked very fletching in their uniforms.

Sacre' bleu mon ami.... the bummers are pissing avvor Lindon..

[Laava]

The French felching in their uniforms.

Dirty fuckers!

[awayatc]

Pink Panther.....

Duz yur dug bite...?
"No..".

(Minute later Clouseau gets ripprd to bits by angry dog...)

I taut u sed yur dug duznt bite......
"That is not my dog"

:scooter:

[n0regret5]

hilarious, i heard a while back 'fuck' was an acronym for 'foricating under council of the king'...yours makes way more sense!

[Skyryder]

Yea............ I can just see some duck shooters coming home and telling the misses to go and 'fuck the bird.':2guns:


Skyyrder