The Car Talk show (on NPR) with Click and Clack, the Tappet
Brothers, have a feature called the 'Puzzler, and their most recent
"Puzzler was about the Battle of Agincourt. The French, who were
overwhelmingly favored to win the battle, threatened to cut a certain
body part off of all captured English soldiers so that they could never
fight again. The English won in a major upset and waved the body
part in question at the French in defiance.
The puzzler was:
What was this body part?
This is the answer submitted by a listener:
Dear Click and Clack,
Thank you for the Agincourt 'Puzzler', which clears up some profound
questions of etymology, folklore, and emotional symbolism. The
body part which the French proposed to cut off of the English after
defeating them was, of course, the middle finger, without which it is
impossible to draw the renowned English longbow. This famous
weapon was made of the native English yew tree, and so the act of
drawing the longbow was known as "plucking yew".
Thus, when the victorious English waved their middle fingers at the
defeated French, they said, "See, we can still pluck yew! PLUCK
YEW!"
Over the years some 'folk etymologies' have grown up around this
symbolic gesture. Since 'pluck yew' is rather difficult to say (like
"peasant mother pheasant plucker", which is who you had to go to for
the feathers used on the arrows), 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
are mistakenly thought to have something to with an intimate
encounter. It is also because of the pheasant feathers on the arrows
that the symbolic gesture is known as "giving the bird".
And yew all thought yew knew everything!