Re: FW: Pluck Yew

[Bryn Watkins <bryn@tibinc.com>]

Poster: Bryn Watkins <bryn@tibinc.com>

At 02:10 PM 1/15/97 -0500, you wrote:
>
>Poster: edh@ascc01.ascc.lucent.com (Alfredo el Bufon)

>I noticed on videos of the British SF-comedy TV show "Red Dwarf" that
>people (or scutter-robots or holograms) make a two-finger gesture that
>looks like a combination of the V-for-Victory (in that it uses two
>fingers) and "The Finger" (in that the back of the hand faces the
>recipient and the hand is thrust up sharply).  Maybe the extra finger
>is just thrown in to make it suitable for television (the way TV
>characters say "freakin'" or "friggin'").
>
This is a well-known and common insult in the UK, and in Australia as well.
Two fingers held up in a V, with the back of the hand toward the insulted,
is as common or probably more common than the one 2nd finger gesture.  I
don't know where it came from, but every schoolchild in the Crown countries
and territories knows it.
After I lived there, it's become similar in usage to me, too, and I find I
notice it (and some other words that I didn't used to think were in this
vein, like "shag").  I don't take it as an insult unless it's implied, and
obviously so, but I do notice it.
Bryn y Pobydd (the piper)
*******************************************************************
Kappellenberg, Windmaster's Hill, Atlantia
Quarterly sable and gules, two feathers fesswise argent.
http://www.unc.edu/~watkins/

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