The History of the Middle Finger
Well, here now......here's something I never knew before, and now that I know it, I feel compelled to share it with my more intelligent friends in the hope that they, too, will feel edified.
Isn't history more fun when you know something about it? 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 English longbow 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! Since 'pluck yew' is rather difficult to say, the difficult consonant cluster at the beginning has gradually changed to a labiodentals 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."
IT IS STILL AN APPROPRIATE SALUTE TO THE FRENCH TODAY!
~~~ And yew thought yew knew every plucking thing. ~~

Two migrants arrive in the USA by boat and one says to the other, ‘I hear that the occupants of this country actually eat dogs.’ ‘Odd,’ the other one replies, ‘but if we shall live in America, we might as well do as the Americans do.’ Nodding emphatically, the first migrant point to a hot-dog vendor and they both walk towards it.
‘Two dogs, please,’ says one of the migrants. The vendor is only too please to oblige and he wraps both hot dogs in foil. Excited, the migrants hurry over to a bench and begin to unwrap their ‘dogs.’ One migrant unwraps the wrapper, stares at it for a moment, leans over to the other and whispers cautiously, ‘What part did you get?.

An Arab sheik says to an American tourist. “Mr. Smith, your wife, she is beautiful. I have to have her. I will trade you her weight in gold.”
Mr. Smith says, “Give a few days.”
The sheik asks, “To think it over?”
Mr. Smith says, “Hell, no. To fatten her up.”

Did you hear about the new gay Chinese restaurant?
The most popular dish is Sum Yung Guy.