> Subject: puzzler
>
> Yew Puzzler
>
> The 'Car Talk' show (on NPR) with Click and Clack, the Tappet
> Brothers, have a feature called the 'Puzzler.' 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."
>
> And yew all thought yew knew everything!
Ken.Dahman@anheuser-busch.com
1959 TR3A
Ballwin, Missouri
(314) 391-0016
>
>
>
|