The origins of the british "two finger salute" are attributed, apocryphally it would seem, to a popular story that says that it derives from the gestures of English archers at Agincourt. The story claims that the French cut off fingers from captured archers, and that the two fingered gesture was a sign of defiance by those who retained their fingers.

The fashion for many correspondents to offer one finger is possibly derived from ancient Rome, where it was an image of an erect phallus was considered a talisman against evil spells. As a consequence, displaying this gesture to another may not have been a pseudo-sexual insult but rather a insulting statement along the lines of "I'm going to protect myself against your witchcraft, before you even start."