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From: Pete <ppb23@hermes.cam.ac.uk>
Newsgroups: alt.ascii-art
Subject: Re: The History of Giving the Finger
Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2002 20:32:13 +0000
Organization: University of Cambridge, England
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> That 'pluck yew' bit sounds a tad tenuous to me. I always heard that the
> French cut *two* fingers off the English archers, so the traditional English
> salute is with two fingers up, not one. The symbol was later partly
> corrupted, partly reinvented, rather like the 'thumbs up/down' gesture, to
> one finger making a fisting reference.

Two fingers up, indeed.
I very much doubt the pl/f theory... even morphing from one to the other
the l is resilient. Afaik the word originated in elizabethan england,
where it was visibly branded onto people "For Unclean Carnal Knowledge".

OA:

      /|
     |(
    /  \
   |    `.
  /  .-,  |
 |  ,  , /
 |  ;=; '       burning match. Looks diddleable.
  \_|=|/
    | |
    | |
    | |
    | |
    |_|