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! Over the years some 'folk

etymologies'

have grown up around this symbolic gesture.

Since 'pluck yew' is rather difficult to say like "pleasant mother pheasant

plucker" (which is who you had to go to for the feathers used on the arrows

for the longbow), 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, that the

symbolic gesture is known as "giving the bird".



...And yew thought yew knew everything....

hah good stuff banzai

wow i learn something new everyday.

i feel enlightened

thanks banzai

DAMN



https://www.nopistons.com/forums/pub...1047683894.gif

pleasant mother pheasant plucker

wow.. I almost feel bad for all that bad stuff I usually say about you.. ALMOST..

HA! I knew that, thats why being an english major rocks.



The word decimate originally never ment to destory. Way back when, like ancient greek status, the term decimate was used for as a punishment for troops. If a certain platoon did something wrong, every tenth man in the group was killed (thus the prefix deci, for 10). Rumors say this practice was continued up to WWI in the enlgish army, but I highly doubt it continued until that time.

You youngn's scare me..

and did you know that peugot developed the 4 valve dual overhead cam cylinder head in 1912?



mike

The first FWD car made by Citroen...it had "traction avant".