Morsomme historier

[Stein]

The History of the Middle Finger

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."
IT IS STILL AN APPROPRIATE SALUTE TO THE FRENCH TODAY!
And yew thought yew knew every plucking thing.

[GreenMan]

Det er en feil i denne historien. Det var ikke bare langfingeren, men også pekefingeren.
Den middelalderske varianten av fingeren var slik som dette bildet viser:

Den er også eldre enn 1415. Husker ikke hvilken men det er en norsk alterfrontale som viser dette tegnet, og denne skal være datert til midten av 1200-tallet.

Uansett, det er en morsom historie . hvor har du sakset den fra?

[Stein]

Jeg står ikke inne for den historiske korrektheten av fortellingen, da jeg fikk den på mail av en kamerat. Så jeg vet ikke hvor den kom fra opprinnelig. Kan høre om han har noen forslag.

Skulle en vært trygg, burde franskmennene vurdert å fjerne de fleste fingrene, men da hadde ikke historien vært morsom...

Det er ihvertfall morsomt, dersom det stemmer at dette tegnet fremvises på en norsk altertavle, og i tillegg har gjort det i 800 år uten at noen har tatt anstøt....