Why the Middle Finger Means FY

[machoman]

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?

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 English longbow was made of the native English Yew tree, and the act of drawing the longbow was known as "plucking the yew" (or "pluck yew"). :p

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! Since 'pluck yew' is rather difficult to say, the difficult consonant cluster at the beginning has gradually changed to a labiodentals 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." :) :D


IT IS STILL AN APPROPRIATE SALUTE TO THE FRENCH TODAY!

And yew thought yew knew every plucking thing. :rolleyes:

[louis2002]

learn something new after reading the FR by bro machoman...................

[SammyHulk]

Now i noe.....:D

[whitegals]

Just to add on a little bit to Bro Machoman's definition, apparently,

after the English had kicked the French asses, they were stood there showing their middle fingers and shouting," We can still Pluck Yew!" But because they shouting across the plains, on the other side of the battlefield, the French thought the English were just waving their middle fingers at them and all they could hear was F**K YOU!

Now here's another interesting myth as well, do you guys know why making out is called to F**K? Apparently, after the Black Plague which killed a lot of people, then followed by the Great London Fire, an urgent plan was formulated to re-populate the kingdom, therefore people were encouraged to shag all the time. Therefore, it's Fornication Under Command of the King. :D

[fenwick]

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?

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 English longbow was made of the native English Yew tree, and the act of drawing the longbow was known as "plucking the yew" (or "pluck yew"). :p

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! Since 'pluck yew' is rather difficult to say, the difficult consonant cluster at the beginning has gradually changed to a labiodentals 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." :)


IT IS STILL AN APPROPRIATE SALUTE TO THE FRENCH TODAY!

And yew thought yew knew every plucking thing.

Just to add on a little bit to Bro Machoman's definition, apparently,

after the English had kicked the French asses, they were stood there showing their middle fingers and shouting," We can still Pluck Yew!" But because they shouting across the plains, on the other side of the battlefield, the French thought the English were just waving their middle fingers at them and all they could hear was F**K YOU!

Now here's another interesting myth as well, do you guys know why making out is called to F**K? Apparently, after the Black Plague which killed a lot of people, then followed by the Great London Fire, an urgent plan was formulated to re-populate the kingdom, therefore people were encouraged to shag all the time. Therefore, it's Fornication Under Command of the King.

Very educational . Thanks from both of you bros!! Cheers:)

[Vectra]

Interesting:cool: but to draw the long bow, I thing should need 2 fingers: Index and mid finger.

[wanker10]

Just to add on a little bit to Bro Machoman's definition, apparently,

after the English had kicked the French asses, they were stood there showing their middle fingers and shouting," We can still Pluck Yew!" But because they shouting across the plains, on the other side of the battlefield, the French thought the English were just waving their middle fingers at them and all they could hear was F**K YOU!

Now here's another interesting myth as well, do you guys know why making out is called to F**K? Apparently, after the Black Plague which killed a lot of people, then followed by the Great London Fire, an urgent plan was formulated to re-populate the kingdom, therefore people were encouraged to shag all the time. Therefore, it's Fornication Under Command of the King. :D

And showing two fingers (first & middle)meaning "Up U". But Singaporean girls like to pose the "V" while taking photos.:D

[Hoegaargen]

Learn something new, thanks bro macho, all the while i think that because the middle finger is the longest of all, that the reasons, it is offensive.

[bruce wayne]

....... the act of drawing the longbow was known as "plucking the yew" (or "pluck yew")..........began mocking the French by waving their middle fingers ...... 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 every plucking thing. :rolleyes:

Bro macho ! Great piece of info ! And it all sounds so reasonable. :D

[semen]

What do you know, you learnt something new everyday. Thanks for that bro.

[bobsam]

Very interesting, dint know there is such a history to the middle finger thingy. :D

[Cytan7]

That's interesting... it will be more meaningful for me the next time when i show middle finger to others... :D:D

[Steadyman1]

Here's an extract.

Giving someone "the finger" is one of the basest violations in modern culture, but its origins date back over 2500 years. The first written record of the insult occurred in ancient Greece, where the playwright Aristophanes (the Adam Sandler of his day) made a crude joke mixing up the middle finger and the penis. Even back then, the bird was considered an aggressive, phallic put-down.

It has been argued by anthropologists that the finger is a a variant of a classic "phallic aggressive" gesture used by primates. By jabbing a threatening phallus at your enemy like a wild animal, you aren't just belittling him, but also making him your sexual inferior. Instead of using a real penis, civilized Janes and Platos called upon the substitute wieners within their own hands to mock, threaten, and humiliate opponents.

And boy, did it. When the Romans imported the art, music, and culture of the Greeks, the finger came along, too. Roman Emperor Caligula, a pioneer in perversity, frequently shocked his citizens by forcing them to kiss his middle finger instead of his hand. One of his subjects, Cassius, who Caligula often taunted as being too effeminate, finally had enough humiliation and assassinated him. Clearly, the bird was not to be taken lightly.

During the Middle Ages, the finger went underground. It was still known, but the Catholic Church frowned upon its use, as the middle finger was supposed to be holy in the Mass. The unholy insult lurked deep within the hearts of filthy- minded folks everywhere, hiding from sight until the 19th century when it began to crop up again thanks to a new invention -photography.

In 1886, Hall of Fame baseball pitcher Charles "Old Hoss" Radbourn slipped his little finger fastball into the Boston Beaneaters team picture. The split-second art of photography could turn the once-boring painted portrait into a spontaneous work of rebellion, humor and spunk. Americans everywhere quickly got into the act.

Old Hoss Makes History With His Finger

In the polyglot, immigrant mish-mash of early 20th century America, the finger was the one symbol every man, woman and dog could understand. With the invention of the automobile, it could be delivered from behind the safety of glass & steel, and at great speeds. All the finger needs to deliver its punch is a clear line of sight. Check out THIS horizon line, baby!

Throughout the 20th century, the finger has penetrated all levels of society. Roughhewn farmers did it, hippies did it, and even the Vice President of the United States got into the act. At a campaign stop for Senator Bob Dole in 1976, Nelson Rockefeller was heckled by protesters telling him what they thought of his Vietnam war policy by casting their middle finger votes. Never one to back down, Rocky just flipped it right back.

Considering the Vice-president of the USA could flip off with impunity, it is no surprise that only a few months later, an appellate court in Connecticut ruled the finger was not legally obscene, releasing it from its gilded cage.

At the dawn of a new millennium, we can rest assured this once endangered bird is thriving. Today it appears in films ("Titanic"), books (Elizabeth Wurtzel's "Bitch"), school yards, and most recently, network television (on "NYPD Blue"). Instead of shunning this "obscene" gesture, we must treasure its rich cultural heritage. We are living in the Golden Age of The Finger. Get used to it.

[machoman]

learn something new after reading the FR by bro machoman...................

FR?

Well, glad that you learned something new, bro louise2002.

Now i noe.....

SBF is educational, right?

Just to add on a little bit to Bro Machoman's definition, apparently,......
...........
..............

Therefore, it's Fornication Under Command of the King.

Thanks for the additional info, bro whitegals.

Very educational . Thanks from both of you bros!! Cheers:)

You are most welcome, bro.

Interesting:cool: but to draw the long bow, I thing should need 2 fingers: Index and mid finger.

Yup, agreed but the middle finger is the 1 you use to pluck yew.

And showing two fingers (first & middle)meaning "Up U". But Singaporean girls like to pose the "V" while taking photos.

I believe the "V" was used by Winston Churchill after England's victory over Germany in WW II to signify "Victory".

Learn something new, thanks bro macho, all the while i think that because the middle finger is the longest of all, that the reasons, it is offensive.

It's my pleasure, bro Hoegaagen.

Bro macho ! Great piece of info ! And it all sounds so reasonable.

Well, actually I don't know if it's a fact or myth, bro bw.

What do you know, you learnt something new everyday. Thanks for that bro.

Very interesting, dint know there is such a history to the middle finger thingy. :D

Not sure if it's true though.

Here's an extract.

Giving someone "the finger" is one of the basest violations in modern culture, but its origins date back over 2500 years.......
............
.............
................

Instead of shunning this "obscene" gesture, we must treasure its rich cultural heritage. We are living in the Golden Age of The Finger. Get used to it.

You have other stories of how the showing the middle finger means "Fuck You" eh? :cool:

Thanks for sharing.

[wanker10]

I believe the "V" was used by Winston Churchill after England's victory over Germany in WW II to signify "Victory".

The 'V' sign with the palm facing outwards mean victory but with the palm facing inwards mean "up yours"

Also, from what i was told, FUCK stands for Fornicate Under the Consent of the King.This is what i was told when studying in Glasgow in the nineties.

Cheers!

[Steadyman1]

You have other stories of how the showing the middle finger means "Fuck You" eh? :cool:

Found 2 articles on this.

1.
In Western cultures, the finger (as in giving someone the finger) is a well-known obscene hand gesture made by extending the middle finger of the hand while bending the other fingers into the palm. A known variation includes extending the thumb as well.

The gesture is also known as the "bird", "flipping the bird", "flipping someone off", "shooting a bird", "flying the bird", "telling me I'm number one", "the single-finger/one-fingered salute", "birdie worthy's", or innumerable other obscure monikers. When both hands are used (for emphasis), it may be known as the "double-barreled salute/giving both barrels", the "double deuce","space docking", a "double whammy" or the "dirty double".

2.
Most likely derived from Ancient Greece, ‘the finger’ is one of the most widespread obscene gestures throughout the Western world. In a handful of Mediterranean and Arab countries the index finger is preferred to the middle, but the meaning remains crystal clear. There are a myriad of different stories for the origin of the finger (going back as far as 2500 years), making mention of Greek tragedies, phallic representation, perverse Roman emperors, English longbowmen, and annoyed deaf people - but we just don’t know.

Also known as the ‘flip-off’, the ‘bird’, the ‘highway salute’, ‘digitus impudicus’ and the ‘One-Fingered Victory Salute’ (thanks to President Bush’s famous TV blooper), the middle finger is probably the most universally-understood hand gesture in the world. This is owed mostly to its age, the sheer simplicity of the gesture, as well as the human preoccupation with somehow relating everything back to sexual organs.

Of course there are regional differences, from half-extending the second and fourth fingers (no doubt to represent the ‘balls’ either side of the middle finger ‘dick’) or combining the finger with another rude gesture, to being as creative as holding up your middle three fingers and telling your target to “read between the lines”.

[~iOOi~]

Very educational, with some version of mid finger :D

[ILikeBigOnes]

Nice story but, urban myth nonetheless...
snopes.com: Pluck Yew (http://www.snopes.com/language/apocryph/pluckyew.asp)

Pluck Yew

Claim: The 'middle finger salute' is derived from the defiant gestures of English archers whose fingers had been severed by the French at the Battle of Agincourt.

Status: False.


Origins: The piece quoted above is silly, and so obviously a joke that shouldn't need any debunking. Nonetheless, so many have forwarded it to us accompanied by an "Is this true?" query that we feel duty-bound to provide a bit of historical and linguistic information to demonstrate why this story couldn't possibly be true.

First of all, despite the lack of motion pictures and television way back in the 15th century, the details of medieval battles such as the one at Agincourt in 1415 did not go unrecorded. Battles were observed and chronicled by heralds who were present at the scene and recorded what they saw, judged who won, and fixed names for the battles. These heralds were not part of the participating armies, but were, as military expert John Keegan describes, members of an "international corporation of experts who regulated civilized warfare." Several heralds — both French and English — were present at the battle of Agincourt, and not one of them (or any later chroniclers of Agincourt) mentioned anything about the French having cut off the fingers of captured English bowman.

Secondly, for a variety of reasons, it made no military sense whatsoever for the French to capture English archers, then mutilate them by cutting off their fingers. Medieval warriors did not take prisoners because they were observing a moral code that dictated that opponents who laid down their arms and ceased fighting must be treated humanely; they took prisoners because high-ranking captives were valuable property that could be ransomed for money. The ransoming of prisoners was the only way for medieval soldiers to make a quick fortune, and so they seized every available opportunity to capture opponents who could be exchanged for a handsome price.

Bowman were not valuable prisoners, though; they stood outside the chivalric system and were considered the social inferiors of men-at-arms. There was no monetary reward to be obtained by capturing them, nor was there any glory to be won by defeating them in battle. As Keegan wrote, "To meet a similarly equipped opponent was the occasion for which the armoured soldier trained perhaps every day of his life from the onset of manhood. To meet and beat him was a triumph, the highest form which self-expression could take in the medieval nobleman's way of life." Archers were not the "similarly equipped" opponents that armored soldiers triumphed in defeating; if the two clashed in combat, the armored soldier would either kill an archer
outright or leave him to bleed to death rather than go to the wasteful effort of taking him prisoner.

Moreover, if archers could be ransomed, then cutting off their middle fingers would be a senseless move. Your opponent is not going to pay you (or pay you much) for the return of mutilated soldiers, so now what do you do with them? Take on the burden and expense of caring for them? Kill them outright and violate the medieval moral code of civilized warfare? (Henry V was heavily criticized for supposedly having ordered the execution of French prisoners at Agincourt.)

Even if killing prisoners of war did not violate the moral code of the times, what would be the purpose of cutting off fingers and then executing these same people? Why not simply kill them outright in the first place? Do you return these prisoners to your opponents in exchange for nothing, thereby providing them with trained soldiers who can fight against you another day? (Even if archers whose middle fingers had been amputated could no longer effectively use their bows, they were still capable of wielding mallets, battleaxes, swords, lances, daggers, maces, and other weapons, as archers typically did — and as they indeed did at Agincourt — when the opponents closed ranks with them and the fighting became hand-to-hand.)

So much for history. There's not much that makes linguistic sense here, either. The claim that the "difficult consonant cluster at the beginning" of the phase 'pluck yew' has "gradually changed to a labiodental fricative 'f'" is specious. A labiodental fricative was no less "difficult" for Middle English speakers to pronounce than the aspirated bilabial stop/voiceless lateral combination of 'pl' that the fricative supposedly changed into, nor are there any other examples of such a shift occurring in English. As well, the etymology of the word 'fuck' indicates that the word originated in a completely different time, place, and manner than the absurd version presented here. And on top of all that, the insulting gesture of extending one's middle finger (digitus impudicus in Latin) dates from Roman times (at least 2,000 years ago), so it obviously was not developed in conjunction with the creation of the English word 'fuck.'"

Last but certainly not least, wouldn't these insolent archers have been bragging about plucking the bow's string, and not the wood of the bow itself?

Barbara "bowfinger" Mikkelson

Last updated: 9 July 2007

The URL for this page is snopes.com: Pluck Yew (http://www.snopes.com/language/apocryph/pluckyew.asp)

Urban Legends Reference Pages © 1995-2008 by snopes.com.

[machoman]

The 'V' sign with the palm facing outwards mean victory but with the palm facing inwards mean "up yours"
Also, from what i was told, FUCK stands for Fornicate Under the Consent of the King.This is what i was told when studying in Glasgow in the nineties.


Thanks for your comments, bro.

Found 2 articles on this.


Thanks for the articles, bro.

Very educational, with some version of mid finger :D

Thanks for dropping by, bro.

Nice story but, urban myth nonetheless...
snopes.com: Pluck Yew (http://www.snopes.com/language/apocryph/pluckyew.asp)

Actually, I had my doubts on the story too, bro.

Thanks for sharing.