warp2diesel wrote:
Does some one else want to cover the Bow Man's salute to the French?
Ahh yes - which battle was it, Agincourt? The English archers using longbows were so deadly and accurate with their fire, that the French threatened before the battle to cut off the middle and index fingers on the "bow hand" of any English archers they captured.
The English got word of this, and on the day of battle as the opposing forces lined up, the English archers held up their hands, back of the hand forward, index and middle fingers displayed in a "V", as a gesture of defiance toward the French.
This lived on and evolved into a common gesture of defiance and insult, now commonly referred to as "Up the Queen", still common across the pond.
At some point, at least on this side of the ocean, it was simplified to just the middle finger - but the meaning remained the same.
And the simple difference between "V for Victory" and "Up the Queen" is the direction of the palm - back of the hand toward the other person, you're flipping them off - palm outwards towards the other person, "V for Victory".
Back in '91, I was watching Daddy Bush on a visit to the Far East (the same one where he threw up at a formal dinner). He was in Austrailia, leaving from some meeting in a limo. There were some Austrailian farmers outside protesting our agricultural policies. Dear old Dad went to flash them the "V for Victory" sign as a gesture of goodwill -
except he had the back of his hand facing toward them.
I immediately recognized the gesture, and literally was ROTFLMAO, so hard I had tears coming down my cheeks.
Right there live on CNN, beamed to literally billions of people around the globe in real time, our dumb SOB of a President had literally flipped the bird to an entire country!
It took CNN and our august President nearly an hour to tumble as to what he'd just done, and offer a red-faced apology, saying he'd meant to give the "V" sign - instead of telling one of our closest allies to go fornicate themselves.
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