RE: Middle finger at Agincourt
The British don’t use the middle finger as a gesture so that story is obviously false.
Link to the column in question, for those who would like to know what the heck the OP is talking about.
The “pluck yew” argument is so convoluted that it would be stupid if it was a Monty Python skit.
I’m British and we do use the middle finger sometimes (can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or not)
Anyway, the gesture we use more is two fingers - the same as the middle finger but with the index up to. I don’t think that other countries use this as an insult. But, the way I heard it, the it was two fingers, not one that the French would cut off and that’s the gesture that originated from Agincourt.
Yes, but when British people use just the middle finger, it is probably because they have learned the gesture from American TV and movies. If it is true that the gesture goes back a long way, as Cecil maintains (I have some reservations, as Americans do seem to have a bit of a habit of ascribing ancient or medieval European roots to traditions that in fact, originated fairly recently in the USA itself), my guess is that it came to the US with immigrants from continental Europe, rather than from Britain.
I am open to being persuaded, however, that the single finger gesture was once common in Britain, but was mostly displaced by the two-finger one some time after American and British cultures started to diverge.
The story I have heard is that it was the little finger, the pinky, that would sometimes be cut off to incapacitate an archer with minimum collateral damage (presumably if, for some reason, killing him, or maiming him more extensively, were not an option). As I heard it, the pinky actually plays a surprisingly important role in archery. Dopers who are archers may be able to confirm or refute this. Of course, none of this has anything to do with rude gestures.
I’m just surprised that the story didn’t include the navy, so they could be part of our CANOE heritage.
They’re quite different gestures, it must be said. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone display one finger with the little flourish that goes with two.
Somehow, the former always struck me as angrier (and ruder), and the latter more contemptuous.
I’ve found that, provided the gesture is properly deployed, the meaning gets across unambiguously just about anywhere.
Stephen Fry has asserted that the Agincourt story is complete bollocks — and perpetuated by Americans at that. Mind you, I take anything heard on QI with a very large grain of salt.
Frankly, it would be a more believable hoax to say that Churchill’s V hand gesture came about “because the archers got those 2 fingers amputated.”
Merely amputating the middle finger? For that effort the French might as well have amputated the hand or killed the archers.
Is there any reliable source for a French policy of capturing and mutilating archers? Snopes claims not for, among other things, the very good reason that archers had little, if any, value as hostages. Better all round just to kill the plebes.
Mind you, that isn’t to say that they didn’t cut some bits off first, circumstances permitting, just for fun.
In any case, even if archers did boast of their digital endowments at Agincourt — as opposed to, perhaps, using an already existing gesture to express, “Up yours, frogs!” — I should think they would have used three fingers. That’s the usual number employed to draw bowstrings in the West.
Speaking as an archer, I can say that the pinky is the only finger that cutting off wouldn’t have permanent impact on an archer. It would take some getting used to, and of course losing the thumb would make it hard to put an arrow on the bow, but the other three fingers are the ones used to draw the bow. In a pinch, if your hands are strong enough you can use just two, though three is preferable. As such, the strength of the legend is that cutting off the middle finger would indeed be the most damaging to an archer. Long bows tend to be drawn more with the whole hand, but again the pinky would be the least damaging to lose.
On the other hand, I’m with Snopes on this one - all my medieval knowledge suggests Archers were plebes and weren’t valuable enough to be used as hostages, and were typically either killed or conscripted into the conquering army.
It’s an insult in Asian countries - but it may be an insult learned from the West.
The funny thing is that you can invert it, and, in Japan at least, it’s what you’re supposed to do in pictures, kinda like our smile for saying cheese.
I think in Britain, it’s just the V for victory symbol when turned around
For clarification, I was referring to the middle finger alone, not the V two fingers.
Cecil forgets to mention that the reason the middle finger is the rudest is because it’s the longest, and thus the most suited to whatever buggery is being implied.
Powers &8^]
Agreed. Why would the French bother? Why waste valuable time on the battlefield? Much safer to kill the (worthless) prisoner and carry on with the battle when the archer, although unable to use a bow, could still use a dagger.
While we’re on the subject, the “pluck you” bit makes no sense. “Fuck” had only the literal meaning until the late 19[sup]th[/sup] century or so.
It’s not that they would be in the middle of harried battle, and stop to knock off a finger before charging on to the next soldier.
Rather, the concept is if you win a battle by the enemy surrendering. Surrender is technically supposed to garner you some leniency rather than getting your whole force slaughtered. Slaughtering people after they surrender does things to piss off your enemy to fight harder. Think “Goliad” in the war for Texas Independence.
The idea is that yes, they surrendered, and yes, you should grant leniency, but if you just let them go, they can march back home or where ever and then be put right back into service as archers again. So you need to make them non-serviceable as archers, but perhaps not too bad off to be peasants to work the land and whatnot. So you cut off the middle finger or two fingers or whatever that allow the person to draw a longbow. They still have a somewhat functional hand for things like farming, but are useless as an archer.
Now maybe it would make more sense to conscript them into your service. Or maybe there’s risk they could be employed as sword/pike wielders, so you haven’t completely prevented their return to the field. Nevertheless, the principle is that it takes a long time and a lot of training to get good at archery, whereas a pike holder can do that job on day one. So cutting down on archers is going to have a much greater impact on your enemy’s fighting ability than getting rid of a pike wielder.