Middlefinger's blog: "History of the middlefinger"

When the English, under Henry V invaded and took France, the French were very afraid of the famed English Longbowmen. Today's modern composit bows used for Bear Hunting are about a 90-pound pull --- it takes 90 pounds of pressure to pull the string back. An English longbow had a 150 pound draw. When fired horizontally, an English arrow would easily go through 3-4 of the enemy before lodging in the 4th -5th one. The had incredible range as well. Anyway, before the battle of Agincourt where Henry and his 500 soldiers faced 30,000 French -- Over 1,000 were knights -- the French considered that it would be an easy victory. They issued a warning to the English that any English archers taken captive would have their middle (plucking finger) cut off so that that they could never fire a bow again. The taughted the English before the battle by holding up their middle fingers and shouting "Pluck You" --- in somewhat broken English and with middle century French, it came out a little different. FYI: It was made famous primarily because in the taverns of England, it was and still is a wonderful story. The English won that battle ... 500 English soldiers -- having marched and fought all the way across France, faced 30,000 of the enemy --- 24 English died. 10,000 Frenchmen died. France was lost to England until Joan of Arc rallied the French against Henry V's son -- who was crowned as an infant and was only a teen ager. So, it all goes back to the French Waving their Middle Finger and taunting "Pluck You" ... it stuck in English lore as a prime example of stupidity for the French did not expect what would happen to them on that day. FYI: Do the math .... 500 soldiers each faced 60 in hand to hand combat --- and killed, on average -- 20 in one day. Those were some pretty tough dudes. Cheers to my British Freinds -- and a good natured "Pluck You" to the French.

The French, who were overwhelmingly favored to win the battle, threatened to cut a certain body part off of all captured English soldiers so that they could never fight again. The English won in a major upset and waved the body part in question at the French in defiance. The puzzler was: What was this body part? The body part which the French proposed to cut off of the English after defeating them was, of course, the middle finger, without which it is impossible to draw the renowned English longbow. This famous weapon was made of the native English yew tree, and so the act of drawing the longbow was known as "plucking yew". Thus, when the victorious English waved their middle fingers at the defeated French, they said, "See, we can still pluck yew! PLUCK YEW!" Over the years some 'folk etymologies' have grown up around this symbolic gesture. Since 'pluck yew' is rather difficult to say (like "pleasant mother pheasant plucker", which is who you had to go to for the feathers used on the arrows), 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 are mistakenly thought to have something to do with an intimate encounter. It is also because of the pheasant feathers on the arrows that the symbolic gesture is known as "giving the bird". And yew all thought yew knew everything!