History of The Middle Finger

Well, now......here's something I never knew before, and now that I know it, I feel compelled to send it on to my more intelligent friends in the hope that they, too, will feel edified. Isn't history more fun when you know something about it?

Giving the Finger. 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 weapon 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!

"PLUCK YEW!" Since 'pluck yew' is rather difficult to say, the difficult consonant cluster at the beginning has gradually hanged to a labiodental 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!

Well I guess I'm on a roll. My apologies for post whoring

FEMALE POEM

I want a man that's handsome, smart and strong One who loves to listen long, One who thinks before he speaks, One who'll call, not wait for weeks. I want him to be gainfully employed, And when I spend his cash, he not be annoyed. Pulls out my chair and opens my door, Massages my back and begs to do more. Oh! For a man that makes love to my mind, and knows what to answer to "How big! is my b ehind?" I want that this man love me to no end,

And always be my very best friend.

MALE POEM

Well, well, well, I'm all moved back home from Uni now; living with the parents again... :-S Finally managed to get all my stuff sorted in my room, and get my PC back online. How#s everyone been??? If there was any urgent stuff requiring my attention, could someone please repost it? There's really no way I can be arsed to read several hundreds of pages of posts... lol

OCPS - Have you received my track yet?

Subject: Apartment Rent

A businessman meets a beautiful girl and agrees to spend the night with her for $500. So they do. Before he leaves, he tells her that he does not have any cash with him, but he will have his secretary write a check and mail it to her, calling the payment "RENT FOR APARTMENT." On the way to the office he regrets what he has done, realizing that the whole event was not worth the price. So he has his secretary send a check for $250 and enclosed the following typed note: Dear Madam: Enclosed you will find a check in the amount of $250 for rent of your apartment. I am not sending the amount agreed upon, because when I rented the apartment, I was under the impression that; 1) it had never been occupied 2) that there was plenty of heat 3) that it was small enough to make me feel cozy and at home. However, I found out that it had been previously occupied, that there wasn't any heat, and that it was entirely too large.

Upon receipt of the note, the girl immediately returned the Check for $250 with the following note:

Dear Sir,

First of all, I cannot understand how you expect a beautiful apartment to remain unoccupied indefinitely. As for the heat, there is plenty of it, if you know how to turn it on. Regarding the space, the apartment is indeed of regular size, but if you don't have enough furniture to fill it, please don't blame the landlady. Send the rent in full or we will be forced to contact your present landlady.

[b] wassup joe, remember me

i was th first fan who caught up with u in india, mumbai airport. i still cant belive that u accepted my gift. i hope u liked it. still cant belive it.

i absolutely love ur music 24/7 its on in my house, irrespective of what my neighbours say bout the volume. if u can suggest me somethin for my picking, i would be delighted and overwhelmed. its really admirable , the contribution of urs to the instrumental music industry. you really are a consummate artist.

i hope its hangin in there in ur house, may be but i would like to know that, if u have some time.

i salute you!

Here comes the Japan DVD!!!

WAAAAHHOOOOOOOEEYYYYYYYYYYYY!!

...and now back to your regularly scheduled program ;-)

OMG!!! JOE, JON thank you thank you thank you thank you for the G3 DVD update.....come onnnnnnnnnn October!!! :)

i just want to say to stu ham that on the live in san fransisco album. Bass solo was very good. i am not a bass guitar player but i have played with three of them in two different groups and i have to say from what ive seen them play and then listening to you play bass solo, i was very impressed. i think it was great. My question is what kind of bass do you playu 4, 5 , or six string and how are they different. i mean how is a 4 string different then a six or a five.. This may sound like a stupid question but like i said ive never played bass so i have no idea. thanks

I CANNOT WAIT FOR OCT 25

Looking forward to it big time.

Jon Luini/Joe Satriani....thanks for the great news!

cheese101, glad to be of service to the master, and his servants....lol

MASTER YODA- hope you are coping well with living with parents again after University... I think I lasted about 10 months then moved out again! Nobody's fault but everyone needs their space! Are you still in Guildford?

MARI- Hope you are well :)

zinc master

webmaster - Awesome...thanks for the info. :-)

Go here and scroll down for a sound clip.

I know I've told this story on T2J before, but Steve Morse had a guitar in his lap and he was just fooling around with it while he was watching the Columbia reentry live on television. So he came up wtih the melody immediately after it burned up, and he went right to the studio and recorded it with Deep Purple.

...

"First published in 1981, Britain-based Kerrang! magazine has covered the hard-rock end of the music spectrum ever since."

Green Day is NOT hard rock. They aren't even punk anymore. Meh.

That's been the case with past webcasts, anyway.