Scottish cultural question?

In the Middle Ages when England and France were often at war, all men in England were obliged by law to practice archery regularly, which paid off in battles like Agincourt when the French were decisively beaten by English archers. If the French captured any archers they would cut off their first and second fingers to stop them drawing the bow, so sticking up two fingers is traditionally a sign made by the English to their French enemies, sort of saying "we can still fire arrows at you". It is now a general-purpose offensive gesture.

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actually the v for victory sign is different,with the palm of hand towards the viewer,where as, the two fingered derogatoty gesture is with the back of hand towards the viewer.

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the v for victory shows the palm of the hand,,,the "finger" shows the back of the hand

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No it isn't

The gesture was unknown till the early years of the 20th Century

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The archery explanation is quite correct,

The archery explanation is a well-known *myth*. There are any number of historical sources that will tell you so.

This quote is from Wikipedia:

"A commonly repeated legend claims that the two-fingered salute or V sign derives from a gesture made by longbowmen fighting in the English and Welsh[17] army at the Battle of Agincourt (1415) during the Hundred Years' War. According to the story, the French were in the habit of cutting off the arrow-shooting fingers of captured English and Welsh longbowmen, and the gesture was a sign of defiance on the part of the bowmen, showing the enemy that they still had their fingers,[8][18][19].

The bowman etymology is unlikely, since no evidence exists of French forces (or any other continental European power) cutting off the fingers of captive bowmen; the standard procedure at the time was to summarily execute all enemy commoners captured on the battlefield (regardless of whether they were bowmen, foot soldiers or merely unarmed auxiliaries) since they had no ransom value, unlike the nobles whose lives could be worth thousands of florins apiece."

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The whole thing about the archers and their fingers is a total myth, good story tho it is. As for the 'V' for Victory during WW2, Winston Churchill made the sign with his palm facing himself - so it often looks like an offensive gesture, although most at the time made the 'V' with the palm outwards to avoid confusion.

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