History of The Middle Finger

[Nimrod]

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."

And yew thought yew knew every plucking thing!

[jdderosier]

Is that the straight scoop or what?

Top

[tominator]

learn something new every day

[Deep C]

I still give to the French every where I can...

[shoefish]

Along those same lines, have you heard about where the saying "Rule of thumb" comes from? Supposedly there used to be a law on the books a long long time ago that it was lawful to hit your wife with a switch (branch) as long as it was no bigger in diameter than your thumb.

[Deep C]

Or the origin of our common term for manure... When it was shipped in bulk for fertilizer it was too dangerous to store below decks where moisture could get it to produce explosive methane gas. The crates were marked...

Ship High In Transit...

[Turkey Feeder]

Yew know I thought the middle finger meant up the AZZ.....and the index and pinky meant up both......do you have the orgin of the latter mate .
Jim

[Fishwagon]

I dunno. I have heard the finger comes from a taunt by bowmen, but heard a differant story. I heard it was more in reference to a crossbow, that could punch through plate armor with no trouble. It revolutionized warfare, and did away with the status in knights. The pope wanted to outlaw it.

anyway id bet it has something to do with a bow or crossbow. I think the 'pluck yew' part is hearsay.

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: 29 September 1999

The URL for this page is http://www.snopes.com/language/apocryph/pluckyew.htm
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I still think its something to do with a bow or crossbow.

[oldmud]

Geeeeezzz Capten: I thought that was a good one and read all the way down to (one above) . Barbra "bowfinger" Mikkelson ????. Sorry i ever looked, now i'll have to waste my time on research. LOL Don

[Stephen]

I learnt this from when I was a young boy and i'm glad this has been brought up. You learn something new everyday, I guess. My history teacher spent a certain length of time telling me this story and I would of never guessed that the history of the middle finger would of been brought up from that period of time.