Ok, This si a long shot.
An actor performed a lecture at an ivy league university about legends and truth.
HIs motto was something like "if the legend is more popular than the truth, print the legend."
I also remember he ran through theories on the first use of "**** you." It was the yewmen who used long bows.
Does anyone know what I am talking about?
ammianus
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I don't know the documentary, but the origin of two fingers in a v sign (palm facing the holder), and meaning **** you is said to have originated with English longbowmen during the Hundred Years War.
When the French captured English longbowmen, they would cut off the index and middle fingers of their right hand,thus making it impossible for them to use a bow in future.
In battle, therefore, the English longbowmen would make the **** you sign to the French by putting up there middle and index fingers in a v sign, to show they were able to shoot arrows at them.
However, I think this story may be apocryphal; English longbowmen were from the yeoman class, rather than the peasant class, and generally served in the retinues of lords and knights. A captured longbowman could be ransomed for as much as 5 pounds, a not necessarily nsignificant sum in the Middle Ages.This sum was unlikely to be forthcoming if the longbowman was returned in a mutilated state, unfit for further military service.