"British two-finger "salute?"" Topic

My brother-in-law suggested that this gesture, with knuckles forward, originated in the days of the English longbowmen, notably indicating to the French that they still had their fingers for pulling back to bow to fire.

I recall seeing two 28mm Scots of the Waterloo era – on with kilt raised and showing his ?bum? to the enemy, and the other making the "salute!"

Does anyone have any current opinions on how this gesture originated? Please see this article found on the internet:

link

GdeP

Story I was always told was that it dates back to HYW. The French would amputate these two fingers from any captured English/Welsh long bowmen to deprive them of the ability to draw the string of the bow. The response from the bowmen when victorious and when facing the French, would be to defiantly show them they still had the two fingers and the ability to use them. The gesture would be accompanied by epithets – these have come down as f-off.

GdeP

Your story fits my understanding of the origin of the 'salute'. I've never heard a better solution.

Interestingly the two fingered salute, knuckles to the rear is often translated a 'victory' signal, certainly from late WW2 onwards.

If you look carefully at early WW2 films of Winston Churchill you might catch him using the knuckles forward version but later on the 'V'ictory version. Churchill was obviously given a bit of 'coaching' as again early in the war he referred to the Gestapo using a soft 'G', a bit like Jestapo. Later he used the hard 'G' as it made the germans sound a bit more 'evil'.

My point is that these symbolic gestures may well have a history and various meanings which change over time.

The 'Gallic POW Punishment' myth – fun though it is – has loooooong been repudiated, as detailed in your link.

As for alternative theories – I remember Germaine Greer kicking off about the V-sign on the grounds that it was of misogynistic origin.
That is to say, the raised fingers were representative of (how to phrase this?) an 'act of insertion'.
This would put it in the same camp as the Latin 'Bras d'Honneur', the fig sign, the middle finger et al.
While not as imaginative as the archer nonsense, it does seem to tally with many other insulting gestures.

This article and returned comments, appear to be 2007, suggest it would have been three fingers to pull the bow; and only one reference from that day – for a Frenchman who served the French at Agincourt; and the English later.

The next commentary seems to be around 1901.

Just wondering what the current observations might be. Those two Scots would be a great addition to a 28mm, 40-figure, two-rank Highland battalion, firing by file!

GdeP

The article linked to in the OP pretty well sums up the current position from a historian's point of view.

Read all of the comments too:

That's pretty early pictorial evidence, and not by any means the only one.

Much ado about little. If we start crunching the origins of every myth we will never stop, and the discussion will become very lengthy and noisy.

We have the modern gestures. We have evidence of their antiquity. We have speculations on the connections. And nothing to point one out as true and the others faked….

I think Highlanders would be unlikely to give such a gesture or "moon" the opposing line by ones or twos. Having been formerly married to a Scot, I'm quite sure the front rank would have done so en masse. You'll need more than one pack, GdP

I really don't see how that illustration contributes anything either way to the 'two fingers gesture' question.

Whatever that gesture may be, it bears little resemblance to the one we're discussing.
Who 'flicks the Vees' palm-towards-target with the thumb sticking out?

I think that I first read of the Two Finger amputation story in Sir Walter Scott's "The White Company" which kind of made it suspect in my opinion anyway.

I had to correct my 10 year who thought she was throwing a "peace" sign,but had her fingers reversed. I gently said ummm,no, and showed her the correct sign.

LOL !

Well ya live n learn….. Always liked the amputation story though….. I'll read that link now

Hey, Guys! I remember a 3-finger salute in the Boy Scouts, back in the day. More to add to the myth!

GdeP]

We knew this in my household as giving a "Harvey Smith salute"

I think there is a misunderstanding here. Two fingers raised have always been attributed to the Longbowmen story, but that is long discredited. Captured archers would have been very lucky to get away with just a couple of digits missing! The origin is beyond the wit of mortal man, but Westfalia have captured it;
link
The confusion is increased by their kilted highlanders as below;
link
The gesture here is different.
The kilt should be worn with a smile and polished shoes, but nothing else below the waist. This was brought home to me at a wedding recently, when the groom turned up to meet his bride, who arrived in her dad's Aston Martin DB5, and he then partook of the refreshments…..such that he rolled down a slope (into something called a Ha ha) and ended up with his kilt around his neck. This gave a remarkable preview to all and sundry of what the bride was facing, but actually medical help was called for….and guess who got involved…….

Still known as an 'Agincourt' in my house….and long may it be so.

The three finger gesture shown on the image posted by Great War Ace bears resemblance to a German gesture of oath (German: Schwurhand), still in use during the Napoleonic period. Here a print from a painting made in the 1820s:

Its basic constítuent are the two fingers pointing upwards, they may be parallel or forming a V. The thumb can point upwards or be bent in.

See some examples here:

link

And for the anniversary of VJ Day see this woman in the opening shot
link

Who 'flicks the Vees' palm-towards-target with the thumb sticking out?

No, he's mocking the handgunners with a mimed pistol, saying "Ha! Bang! Bang! We've got a much bigger gonne! (Once Jankin gets it bloody loaded)".

The gesture in the drawing doesn't really resemble the V-sign, does it? To be fair, though, it does correspond with Henry V's alleged warning that the French would cut off the first two fingers _and_ thumb of any captured archers. That doesn't mean too say that's what the raised hand with three digits refers to.

It's still hardly proof of the age and origin of a gesture which together with its popular explanation didn't surface till the late C19th (those 'Waterloo' figures are _woefully_ anachronistic, my dears).

If we start crunching the origins of every myth we will never stop

I am not entirely sure what you mean by "crunching origins" but surely the point is to question myths that are regularly recounted as historical fact, especially with the power of the internet which has amply proved the ability of a lie to get twice round the world before the truth has put on his trousers (as Abraham Lincon said to Mark Twain).

Fortunately, the internet has also provided us with the ability to share rational investigation of evidence to identify what is fact and what is probably not, as well as consider the validity of any speculation.

A good story is a good story and is always fun to re-tell but the tales we like to tell, often tell us most about ourselves. If we are truly interested in what our forbears did and how they thought then I think we need to be more circumspect.

Personally, 'Up yours' or "F@ck you" seems to me to be a more convincing, less contrived interpretation of the gesture. That's what it has always meant to me. How was it only after thirty years of regular, honourable use of the V-sign before I started hearing the 'Agincourt' explanation? And I do pay attention.

P.S. Love the VJ V-girl

This put the tin hat on Stephen Fry and his QI Elves,

They have be telling us it only goes back to the early 20th century.

Repeated again and again on "Dave".

There has been a lot of misinformation on this thread. Fortunately glam metal band Steel Panther have provided us with a definitive list of hand gestures and their meanings:

If you haven't experienced the sheer awesomeness that is Steel Panther you can find them here (but even though this is the cleaned up version they are definitely Not Safe For Work): YouTube link

It's most likely to be a variant of the cuckold sign which took on a wider 'go forth…' meaning. I dare say it's more recent than we think, but at least we know the 'Harvey Smith' tag only dates from 1971!

TMP link

And here's acouple of examples of Yank POW's using it at the German cameras in Rome.

link

There's a lot of conjecture over that tale. I personally think not as it took three fingers to pull on the warbow, not two. My brother-in-law lost both his 2nd & 3rd fingers on his right hand in a shotgun accident, and It never got in the way of him being a car mechanic and engineer for 40 years. So even if the French were so kind as to let the poor chap 'who had just been instrumental in killing their knightly or Men-at-arms sect' go, it wouldn't stop him from still being able to bare arms such as a bill.

I think that it signifies the open legs of loose women and thus has come down as a visual meaning for F+++ off.

Paul :)

There's quite a famous clip from footage taken in the aftermath of Arnhem, where a 1st Airborne soldier being marched into captivity turns back to give a V sign to the camera.

What is true is that the two-finger salute was common during the Regency/Napoleonic period in lower classes recoginzing a upper class person, such as a gentleman greeting his tenants.

I wonder if you are thinking of the raising of the fingers to the brow, as if tipping an imaginary hat, sometimes referred to as 'tugging the forelock'. Traditionally, a gesture of respect made by farm workers and rural tenants to their employers and to the gentry during the C18th and 19th century. I think there may be references in paintings and literature. Somebody may be able to say whether this has any historical basis.

I believe there are references to naval ratings saluting officers by raising a forefinger to their brow in a similar way.

It has been argued that military salutes in general derive from the custom of removing the hat as a courtesy.

Hats. It's all about hats.