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I have a pair of yellow gold Archer cufflinks. Quite attractive and well made. A perfect gift for the cufflink afficionado ... especially when cufflinks were in their heyday.
But here's the question. What were the archers' nationality. Were they English perchance. And if so ... what was the bow made of. To the best available knowledge back in 1415 the English longbow was made of Yew. And the feathers of the arrows ... not depricted herein ... were made of pheasant.
So here's the thing of it. Back in 1415 the French were having a little fracas with the English in a confrontation called the Battle of Agincourt. The French believed they were winning ... but to ensure further victory ... they thought it would be quite clever to cut the middle finger off of all captured English soldiers. The thinking here was that they-- the English--would not be able to draw back the string of the Longbow without a middle finger. In them thar days ... the art of drawing back the string of the Longbow was called: Plucking the Yew ... or ... colloquially ... they would "pluck yew".
For those of yew who do not yet know where this is going ... read on. To the immense chagrin of the French ... the English scored an important upheaval. To make things worse ... in their state of euphoria ... the English began mocking the French by waving their middle fingers at their vanquished army while wildly stating to all who could still hear: See. We can still pluck yew.
Now ... "pluck yew" is not easy to say. So the beginning consonant clusters of "pluck" was gradually changed to a labiodentals (Lower lip touching upper teeth)fricative (Rush of air) forming the letter "F". And that is pretty much how the words often used with the one-finger salute came to be.
Wait! I'm not done. It is also due to the fact that pheasant feathers were used on the arrows that were used with the longbow that the symbolic gesture became known as "giving the bird".
And now yew know every plucking thing ... do yew not?
This may be a rather short tidbit ... but there are times when space must be conserved in order to pass on vital bits of etymological knowledge. My biggest difficulty was finding either a bow or an arrow to tie in with this topic. This was extremely difficult. It would appear that almost no one bothers to weapons in gold anymore. Who woulda thunk it?
So ... now you know the story ... now go look at the archers as they pluck their yews.
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