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 hanged 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" or
"flip the bird".
IT IS STILL AN APPROPRIATE SALUTE TO THE FRENCH TODAY!
And yew thought yew knew everything
Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:4201, old post ID:34137
Very informative. 
