Flipping the bird? and Morse

[Lyons, Jennifer M]

A (non-linguist) coworker of mine is curious about the origins of the phrase
"flipping the bird".  I couldn't find anything in my copy of the Random
House HDAS, but I only looked quickly.  Any answers?

Also, recently, my mother and I had a little "argument" over how to
pronounce the word "Morse", as in Morse Code.  She said it was pronounced
like "morris", while I say it rhymes with "horse".  (Sorry, I don't know how
to do the IPA in email....)  This morning, the radio traffic reporter said
"morris", too.  Any observations on this?

Thanks,
Jen