Who invented flipping the bird?

Question

I heard it originally meant you're number one in my book.

Answer 1

Honest story--

The hundreds year war.... The Englishman longbow was feared across the world, and they plucked it using the middle finger--- anyhoo french people got all pissed and cut captives middle fingers off--- there was a big battle in france where the English were surrounded and outnumbered but still got out of the jam... while gathering prisoners they flipped them off, saying i can still pluck yew (wood of the bow) and then it got anglecized to the f-ck you insult we know of today

so there ya go

Answer 2

I heard that it came from the same place as "fuq you", I guess its British origin and way back in the day when they were shooting arrows at each other they'd say Pluck Yew! Yew being the what the the bows were made of, and they drew back the arrow with the middle finger, arrows had bird feathers on the end, hence "flipping the bird"

Answer 3

The origin of this gesture is highly speculative, but is quite possibly up to 2500 years old. It is identified as the digitus impudicus ('impudent finger') in Ancient Roman writings [1] and reference is made to using the finger in the Ancient Greek comedy The Clouds by Aristophanes. It was defined there as a gesture intended to insult another. It has been noted that the gesture resembles an erect penis.[citation needed]

Ancient Romans also considered an image of an erect phallus as a talisman against evil spells. As a consequence, displaying this gesture to another may not have been a pseudo-sexual insult but rather an insulting statement along the lines of—"I'm going to protect myself against your witchcraft, before you even start" but an even earlier reference is made to ancient farmers using this finger to test hens for coming eggs.

Jean Froissart (circa 1337-circa 1404) was a historian and the author of Froissart's Chronicles, a document that is essential to an understanding of Europe in the fourteenth century and to the twists and turns taken by the Hundred Years' War. The story of the English waving their fingers at the French is told in the first person account by Jean Froissart.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flipping_the_bird

Answer 4

The middle finger is the finger used to pull back a bow. Rumor has it, the british would cut off that finger on french prisoners so they could no longer use a bow in battle. Then they would flip that finger to show they still had it.

Answer 5

I don't know, but I used to have a license to fly one. It was a little thing like a business card. Once, when a cop stopped me for flying the bird to someone I didn't like and asked me if I had a license to do that, I showed it to him. He tore it in half and told me not any more and gave me a ticket for non-verbal assault!!! After I paid that fine I stopped using my birds so liberally.

Answer 6

An Angry Mute invented the flip.

Answer 7

British people started using the gesture during one of their battles with the French

Answer 8

Chuck Norris invented the bird.

Then he killed it with a swift kick to the thorax.

Answer 9

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Answer 10

The middle finger was first use by “Navigator Commander Szkolny” in the year 1400, he navigated the St. Laurence river that lead into the Great Lakes 92 years before Christopher Columbus. Commander Szkolny gave the middle finger when he stumble on a stone hitting his knee. He was the first to flip the middle finger bird in what is now known as North America.