Subject: something about pheasants, I think
Date: Jan 28 11:44:23 1997
From: Dennis Paulson - dpaulson at mail.ups.edu


>---------- Forwarded message ----------
>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
>"pleasant 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 do 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".

Dennis Paulson, Director phone 206-756-3798
Slater Museum of Natural History fax 206-756-3352
University of Puget Sound e-mail dpaulson at ups.edu
Tacoma, WA 98416
http://www.ups.edu/biology/museum/museum.html