Fascinating trivia
Fascinating trivia
Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 10:32:31 -0500
On the 'Car Talk' show (on NPR) with Click and Clack, the Tappet
Brothers have a feature called the 'Puzzler', and their most recent
'Puzzler' was about 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.
The puzzler was: What was this body part? This is the answer
submitted by a listener:
Dear Click and Clack, Thank you for the Agincourt 'Puzzler', which
clears up some profound questions of etymology, folklore and emotional
symbolism. 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".
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