OFF: War and Civilization

Hulsebos A arjanh at CS.VU.NL
Mon Aug 10 03:20:33 EDT 1998


On Aug 7,  5:33pm, J Strobridge wrote:

>Drifting even further off topic - but what the heck - it's Friday
>afternoon on a wet summer's day:    I was watching a programme on the
>battle of Agincourt the other night** and apparently the weapons that
>won the battle were the English longbows and it's from the bowmen that
>the two fingered V-sign comes (not the Victory sign but the reverse
>V-sign) since the two fingers used are the bowstring-pulling fingers
>and the bowmen would taunt the French by holding them up in derision!

A little addition: if the English bowmen were captured, these very two
fingers were chopped off.... This bit of information adds a little flavor
to the gesture, don't you think?

>cheers
>jill

Arjan H



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