FW: History Lesson (fwd)

>A little history lesson for us all.......
>
>Puzzler re. the Battle of Agincourt.
>
>The French, who were overwhelmingly favored to win the battle,
>threatened to cut a certain body part off of all captured English
>soldiers so that they could never fight again. The English won in a
>major upset and waved the body part in question at the French in
>defiance.
>
>What was this body part?
>
>The body part which the French proposed to cut off of the English after
>defeating them was, of course, the middle finger, without which it is
>impossible to draw the renowned English longbow.  This famous weapon
was
>made of the native English yew tree, and so the act of drawing the
>longbow was known as "plucking yew".
>
>Thus, when the victorious English waved their middle fingers at the
>defeated French, they said, "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), 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!
>