so you had a regular sword/shield/sword/shiels line up. If you had a lefty in there it would go shield/sword/shield/shield/sword/sword . this would provide a gap (where the 2 shields meet) that an enemy could use to disrupt the formation. The close formation is why the romans were so good. just as another piece of useless info on topic. The expression "fuck you" with the associated hand gesture comes from the day's of the english longbowman. The french, if they captured one, would cut off the first 2 fingers of their release hand (normaly the right) so it started out as "pluck yew" with the first 2 fingers of the right hand displayed as a gesture of defiance from the longbowmen cosste said, The F-Word is a really good book on the history of this wonderfully versatile word. There is also Swearing: Social History of Foul Language, Oaths and Profanity in English which looks why some words are so much more taboo than others, such as cunt. (First recorded use is English was groppecuntelane which was where the prostitues hung out in the 13th century, it's pretty much always been a "base" word) Alan Harrison said, with respect to Delster, that "pluck yew" story is a load of old toss. We never said "Fuck you" until it was imported from the Yanks recently. We say "Fuck Off". The displaying of the two fingers may have some basis in fact but "pluck yew" is bollocks. outeast said, I remember teaching a grammar