[Artemisia] The Bird

[Georgia Foster]

This was sent by a friend.  I don't know anything about the validity of it, 
but it sounds good.

Cheers
Malkin
Otherhill
Artemisia



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."  Yew thought yew knew everything.

"It is a damn poor mind that can only think of one way to spell a word" ...
Thomas Jefferson

Jo (Georgia L.) Foster
jo_foster81 at hotmail.com

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