History of the Middle Finger - NOT TRUE

History of the Middle Finger - NOT TRUE ........... i am replying to the previous tag.  You know Dan you are lucky the picture is to small to be read!!  Take note ..... AND I am British .... I should damn well know!!

Sorry folks but this is not true ..... the history of the middle finger started......

American Sign Language, the sign language used by the Deaf Community throughout most of North America, has a rich vocabulary of terms which include profnity. Within Deaf culture, there is a distinction drawn between signs used to curse versus signs that are used to describe sexual acts. In usage, signs to describe detailed sexual behavior are highly taboo due to their graphic nature. As for the signs themselves, some signs do overlap, but they may also vary according to usage. For example, the sign for "shit" when used to curse is different than the sign for "shit" when used to describe the bodily function.

It was the Battle of Agincourt that started the V sign for the profane language for F@#$ You.  It was during this battle
Both armies rose before dawn and assembled for battle, the English numbering 5000 archers and 900 men-at-arms and the French between 20-30,000.

So .... when the English out smarted the French archers and captured the French, they chopped of their "archery" fingers from the archers.  They were already useless .... hence, the  "V" sign was a profane language between the French and English

The "Fuck" was voted the RUDEST word .............

...I believe using the word "cunt" to insult a man is very popular, and very effective, in Europe. I have a Scottish friend who uses it all the time, and I seem to remember it turning up quite a bit in Trainspotting (book *and* the movie). It does sound a lot better with a Scottish accent: "Fook yae, yae wee cunt!"

I'm surprised most of the guys here think "cunt" is laughable when used toward men. That's not been my experience.

Honestly I think the original poster is right-- "cunt" has replaced "fuck" as Baddest Bad Word. No one is surprised to hear "fuck" any more, whereas if you drop the C-bomb in certain situations (ie, in public) you can still hear the collective gasping.

Trivia, according to my mom, who's taking a sign language class: the gesture for "fuck you" (no, not The Finger, the hand coming down on the upswinging elbow-crook thing) is the exact same thing as the ASL sign for "Good morning". So that means this whole gesture was started by very sarcastic deaf drivers. (My mom says her teacher didn't tell them this-- they were watching a video during class, and someone used the gesture, and everyone started cracking up.)

The etymology behind the word "fuck" is troubling because it has always been a "bad" word, so the records were not kept. I found a great book on the history of swear words called BLUE STREAK: SWEARING, FREE SPEECH, AND SEXUAL HARASSMENT by Richard Dooling, and I would recommend it to anyone who's interested in that sort of thing.

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