Darla Lindenmayer's Life journal

My blog about life in general. My own thoughts and opinions in regards to anything political, religious, medical, whatever I see fit. Welcome and ENJOY!!!

Monday, August 22, 2005

History of the Middle Finger

I read this from someone who sent it to me and i found it quite fasinating actually. A little bit of history never hurt anyone and at least with this, the next time you flip someone off, you will know where it came from.


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, anticipatingvictory over the English, proposed to cut off the middle finger of all captured . Without the middle finger it would be impossible to draw the renownedEnglish longbow and therefore they would be incapable of fightingin the future. This famous weapon was made of the native EnglishYew 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. Since 'pluck yew' is rather difficult to say, the difficult consonant cluster at the beginning has gradually changed to alabiodental 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 everything!!



On another thought......
Tonight , I remember my beautiful son who died 16 months ago today. It seemed so natural my dear son that on this day a major break through came out about stem cell research. If only it was available 16 months ago!!!! I pray the much neded research continues so that more lives can be saved and FANCONI ANEMIA CURED! Thats what I dream to see of one day!

Love to all,
Darla