The History of the Curse Words, II: Flippin' the Bird

I mean come on. Who doesn't love to give some unsuspecting asshole the middle finger every once and a while? Someone cuts you off, makes fun of your hair, disrespects yo momma, whatever. When words just cannot suffice, nothing fills the angry void in your soul quite like strongly and defiantly holding up that middle finger in the direction of some poor sap who wronged you. That's right, buddy, take a good long look at that shit.

But why do we do it? As we might ask on the Jewish holiday of Passover, 'what makes this finger different from all other fingers?'

I'm glad you asked.

Legend has it the 'middle finger salute' was first used at the Battle of Agincourt. Since I know that a significant percentage of the Horrible People fan base is made up of English war history oficionados, you would know that particular battle is considered Henry V's crowning acheivement in his part of the Hundred Years War, defeating the Charles VI and his French. Wonder why Olmec never brought this story up on Legends of the Hidden Temple...

Anyway, the battle was notable because the English army was made up of far more longbowmen than were used in average battles. In fact, the majority of the English forces were longbowmen. 'How does one use a longbow,' you might ask? Well, you use your middle finger to pluck at the string, typically horsehair, while holding the actual bow with the other hand, most often made out of the wood of the yew tree.

As in any battle, forces were captured by both sides. The French knew that many English used the longbow proficiently and so those captured by the French had thier middle fingers chopped off. That's right, not broken, not cut, they chopped them O-F-F off. So if ransomed they would be unable to be used as archers ever again. Ouch.

The battle was a rousing success for the English, ending in the outflanking and eventual surrender of the French forces. Those longbowmen remaining at the end of the battle held thier middle fingers aloft, shouting 'I can still pluck yew!' This, of course, referencing the ability to still fire a bow with the correct finger.

Again, a transliteration error leads to a curse word. 'Pluck yew' lead to 'Fuck you.' The rest is history.

But is it true?

Of course not. It's so implausable it's not even funny. Would the English even pay the ransom to get damaged goods? Wouldn't the French have just killed the prisoners if they wanted them out of commission? If the English had so many longbowmen then would the loss of just a few dozen archers be important at all? And lastly, wouldn't the English have shouted to the French, 'Hey you ugly pig-dogs, I can still pluck... horsehair!' instead, seeing as you don't pluck the yew part of the bow? The answer to all of these is yes.

But is this story better? Fuck yea it is.