"Pluck Yew!"

[Dr. Freeman]

I ran across something on another forum so thought people here would like to have a read

A Little history lesson...
History of Giving the Finger:




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 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 are mistakenly thought to have
something to do with an intimate encounter.

It is also because of the pheasant feathers on the
arrows used w/ the longbow that the symbolic gesture is
known as "giving the bird".

And yew thought yew knew everything

When thinking of what to post I Do Whatever My Rice Krispies Tell Me To

history lesson?

 

[MiccyNarc]

Lollerz.

 

[Ennui]

lol, that's awesome.

 

[Teta_Bonita]

lol what the pluck?! :E

 

[Sanada]

hehe, a friend of mind told me about the longbow part but I didn't know F*ck you came from pluck yew.

 

[MiccyNarc]

hehe, a friend of mind told me about the longbow part but I didn't know F*ck you came from pluck yew.

It's a joke.

 

[Sanada]

It's a joke.

Dam... I fell for that one like a sucker.

 

[MiccyNarc]

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

 

[spookymooky]

I thought the F-bomb came from a german word meaning "to penetrate."

 

[Que-Ever]

Read this in a midieval magazine a few months back. It was a good read, although right afterwards I saw a different origin that seemed much more plausible, but I don't rememebr what it was.

 

[evil^milk]

wasn't the f word fornication under the consent of the king?

 

[CptStern]

words to live by:

"I Do Whatever My Rice Krispies Tell Me To"

 

[CptStern]

wasn't the f word fornication under the consent of the king?

"The word **** did not originate as an acronym. It crept, fully formed, into the English language from Dutch or Low German around the 15th century (it's impossible to say precisely when because so little documentary evidence exists, probably due to the fact that the word was so taboo throughout its early history that people were afraid to write it down). The American Heritage Dictionary says its first known occurrence in English literature was in the satirical poem "Flen, Flyss" (c.1500), where it was not only disguised as a Latin word but encrypted — gxddbov — which has been deciphered as fuccant, pseudo-Latin for "they ****."


http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl-f-word.htm

 

[JNightshade]

"labiodental fricative"

sounds like the scientific term for Vagina and Mouth disease :E

 

[ríomhaire]

That's plucking bullflit, I don't believe a word of it.

 

[Sulkdodds]

I thought it came from the German 'ficken'.

 

[Muffin Man]

i already knew that, don't doubt the reliability, but i thought the english did it to the french.... though that makes more sense, damn secondary source !

 

[spookymooky]

I have heard that this is the origin of the whole flicking off thing, but not the f-bomb. And I've heard that originally it was sort of a backward peace sign, because archers use two fingers.

 

[ComradeBadger]

You'd be correct spookymonkey - thats the v sign over here. And it was directed at the French