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 to, will feel edified.

Isn't history more fun when you know something about it?

Giving the Finger

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 weapon 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! "PLUCK YEW!" Since 'pluck yew' is rather difficult
to say, 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!
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.