[Leica] History Lesson (this is soooooo O.T.)

[ricc at mindspring.com (Ric Carter)]

Who cares if it's the truth? A lie that good would be worth believing;^)

Ric Carter
http://gallery.leica-users.org/Passing-Fancies

On Mar 23, 2006, at 2:44 PM, Jeffery Smith wrote:

> I got this in an email from a 71-year-old retired Marine friend of  
> mine. I was hoping that Chandos or some other history type could  
> either verify it or disprove it. Here goes...
> =========================================
> The history of the middle finger salute.
>
> 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").
>
> 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."
>
>
> Jeffery Smith
>
> Jeffery
>
>
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