Flippant Language

The 'Car Talk' show (on NPR) with Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers,
has a feature called the 'Puzzler', and their most recent 'Puzzler' was
about the Battle of Agincourt.  The French, who were overwhelmingly
favored to win the battle, threatened to cut a certain body part off of
all captured English soldiers so that they could never fight again.  The
English won in a major upset and waved the body part in question at the
French in defiance.  The puzzler was: What was this body part?

      This is the answer submitted by a listener:

Dear Click and Clack,

Thank you for the Agincourt 'Puzzler', which clears up some profound
questions of etymology, folklore, and emotional symbolism.  The body
part which the French proposed to cut off of the English after
defeating them was, of course, the middle finger, without which it is
impossible to draw the renowned English longbow.  This famous weapon was
made of the native English yew tree, and so the act of drawing the longbow
was known as "plucking yew".

Thus, when the victorious English waved their middle fingers at the
defeated French, they said, "See, we can still pluck yew!  PLUCK YEW!"

Over the years some 'folk etymologies' have grown up around this
symbolic gesture.  Since 'pluck yew' is rather difficult to say (like
"pleasant mother pheasant plucker", which is who you had to go to for the
feathers used on the arrows), the difficult consonant cluster at the
beginning has gradually changed to a labiodental fricative 'f', and thus
the words often used in conjunction with the one-finger-salute are
mistakenly thought to have something to do with an intimate encounter.  It
is also because of the pheasant feathers on the arrows that the symbolic
gesture is known as "giving the bird".