To Set The Record Straight - The Agincourt Legacy

05/20/2006

Wednesday evening I was asked to tell the story of the origination of one of the most widely used digital gestures known to man…and it ain’t the “Peace Sign.” The gesture I reference is none other than the single digit one…you know the one that, in some incredibly confused manner, seems to refer to a sexual encounter.  For a number of years I wondered how this had come to be.  It just never made sense to me that this simple act that enrages people so much has the same meaning of an action of immeasurable pleasure, and why it is ever offered just to indicate how ticked off the offerer is to the person it is directed toward. 

Well, my wondering was satisfied about five years ago when a co-worker sent me a piece written as an answer to a “Puzzler” question on the NPR’s Car Talk.  I did a little additional research on the information and here is how I presented it to a group of about thirty people on Thursday evening.

Many people have probably given thought to where exactly the single-finger expression originated.  It actually is much older than most of us could have possibly imagined.  It was first displayed at the Battle of Agincourt, October 25, 1415.  Agincourt is in Northern France near Calais.  Henry V of England had invaded France with the purpose of acting on his rightful claim, so he thought, to the French throne.  Unfortunately, that seat was already occupied by Charles IV, and he was not of the mindset to give it up.

Two armies faced each other in a small field near Agincourt.  The French numbered some 30,000 fighting men; the English just about 8,000.  Vastly outnumbered, the English fighters were prepared to die; however, the English army was made up in a large part with the formidable English archers, no doubt the finest fighting force of the times and armed with the renowned English long bow.  There were approximately 6,000 of these archers— each equipped with a bow made of wood of the Yew tree.  Each time this bow was drawn and an arrow, referred to as a “bird” (because they were glided by pheasant feathers – pheasant feathers plucked by pleasant mother pheasant pluckers) was fired off, the bow made a sound, a tone, the English referred to as “plucking yew,” and the launching of the arrow referred to as “giving the bird.”

The French, who outnumbered the English by about four to one, made certain the English soldiers got word that once their army was defeated, the French would round up the English prisoners and cut off the middle finger of their each hands so as to prevent them from ever being able to draw a bow again, and therefore never able go to battle or wage war. 

Now this is where it gets tricky.  Unfortunately for the French, the English archers all but decimated the French army with their “birds.” At the end of the battle the French had lost an estimated 11,000 men, the English just 100.  As the English rounded up the French prisoners, they vigorously raised their middle fingers, held them aloft, and screamed at the French, “Look, we are still able to Pluck Yew.”

Throughout time from that point, the gesture and expression “Pluck Yew” was used by many, many people to show their displeasure.  Over time, the difficult consonant combination “PL” in the word “Pluck,” gave way to a labio-dental, fricative “F,” and thus the extended middle finger became associated with a sexual encounter.

And that is all I have to say about that.