VeeshanVault

Who thinks this is even remotely true????



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.
Isn't history more fun when you know something about it?


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 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 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 yew knew everything!

I thought it was the V's, thats what I read anyway, same reason tho.

i heard it was Fornification Under Command of the King due to the whole nobles could rape whoever they wanted (braveheart style"
think i heard a couple others as well

no thats a stupid internet rumor.

I heard it was about Fuck the English, but I may be biased

i heard it was....

back in teh day some people would try to have sex with the king's daughter or some shit and they got caught and were put in those wooden thingies where only your head and hands stick out of em and people would come up to it and engrave F.U.C.K. on it.

For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge

or something like that.

kyoukan wrote:no thats a stupid internet rumor.

the one im thinking of or his?

[Middle English, attested in pseudo-Latin fuccant, (they) fuck, deciphered from gxddbov.]
Word History: The obscenity fuck is a very old word and has been considered shocking from the first, though it is seen in print much more often now than in the past. Its first known occurrence, in code because of its unacceptability, is in a poem composed in a mixture of Latin and English sometime before 1500. The poem, which satirizes the Carmelite friars of Cambridge, England, takes its title, “Flen flyys,” from the first words of its opening line, “Flen, flyys, and freris,” that is, “fleas, flies, and friars.” The line that contains fuck reads “Non sunt in coeli, quia gxddbov xxkxzt pg ifmk.” The Latin words “Non sunt in coeli, quia,” mean “they [the friars] are not in heaven, since.” The code “gxddbov xxkxzt pg ifmk” is easily broken by simply substituting the preceding letter in the alphabet, keeping in mind differences in the alphabet and in spelling between then and now: i was then used for both i and j; v was used for both u and v; and vv was used for w. This yields “fvccant [a fake Latin form] vvivys of heli.” The whole thus reads in translation: “They are not in heaven because they fuck wives of Ely [a town near Cambridge].”

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=fuck

The acronym version of f.u.c.k. was made up in recent times.

The bird story I'll agree is just more of the same, stupid internet rumour shit.

I figured it was some made up horseshit... but still a little interesting nonetheless

I figured it was fake. We all know the French never thought they would win a battle with anyone.