Fuck
Fuck is one of the strongest and most controversial vulgarismss in the English language, invariably considered offensive and unacceptable in polite situations. It is, however, rather common in daily use, as well as in popular, or vulgar, 20th and 21st century culture. "To fuck" is to copulate (as in "let's fuck"), but it is also used as a general-purpose expletive, as in "fuck off!" ("go away!" or "none of your business!") or "what a dumb fuck" ("what a stupid person"), or to emphasize, as in "this is fucking great" ("this is very good") – it can even be used within words via tmesis, as in "un-fucking-believable" ("incredibly unbelievable"), or even as nearly every word in a sentence "fuck the fucking fuckers!" ("disregard the very displeasing people").In popular culture, the word fuck has grown in usage, and rules allowing it and other vulgar expletives have softened – largely due to demand trends. It is still often censoreded on broadcast radio and television; in 2002, when the controversial French film Baise-moi (2000) was released in the UK, its title was bowdlerised to Rape Me, rather than the literal Fuck Me, though this may have been for effect. A similar kind of censoring is offered on many online forums, where users are given options to filter out vulgarities.
Some people also say "What the fuck!" or "What the hell!" It is an expression that is emphasized with the word fuck. Example: "What the fuck are you doing in my room?" roughly means "What are you doing in my room?"
In situations where using or mentioning the word directly may be considered inappropriate, people often bowdlerize it, replacing it with fudge, the f-word, the f-bomb, frig, freak, fork, fizzuck, frick, frickin, friggin, f*ck, f**k, f-u! (or simply eff), 'fahq, fcuk, the hacker phuck, puck, funk, or f***. In software contexts, fsck, fuk, fark and f2k are also used. In the formerly British Caribbean nations it is sometimes spelled fock. Fark is a bowdlerization which originated in the British Commonwealth countries, derived from exaggerated pronunciation in, for example, the Australian accent.
In the TV series Farscape, characters use the word frell. In the Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy trilogy, it is sometimes replaced with zark (and in one case, Belgium). In the Judge Dredd universe, it is replaced with drokk. Characters on the BBC television series Red Dwarf were known to utter smeg as an epithet, possibly intended as a substitute for fuck. In David Lodge's comic novel Ginger You're Barmy about the British National Service, it is replaced with fugg (although some editions of the novel use "fuck"). In the Shadowrun roleplaying game, fuck is replaced by frag, or in some cases, slot. In the TV series Babylon 5, characters also used frag. In a holiday movie A Christmas Story, a character named Ralphie used the word fudge.
The fashion house French Connection United Kingdom controversially uses its initials, usually in lower case, viz.: fcuk.
The previously mentioned fsck usage is derived from the Unix command fsck(8) for "file-system check". It has been noted that this command is particularly appropriate, as it is the option of last resort.
In the Irish sitcom Father Ted the word fuck was replaced with feck, a common slang word in Ireland that was acceptable to audiences in other countries that had not come across it before.
giving someone the finger
As with other swearwords and taboo words, or intensifiers, fuck is often not used in its original, literal meaning. Rather, it is an intensifier expressing nothing but the speaker's strong emotional involvement (often negatively, but not necessarily: e.g. "fucking good" is a rude way of saying "very good"). In the book Practical English Usage, the two meanings of the word are clearly illustrated by juxtaposing the sentences:
"Fuck you!" expresses anger, and thus seems to be more related to "I am so angry at you, I am going to rape you to punish you" than to "I would like to lovingly have sexual intercourse with you". It also may be related to "fuck off", which seems to be a reference to masturbation, where it might originally have been a vulgar way of saying "quit bugging me and go back to masturbating or whatever stupid stuff you usually do". It may also express indifference with respect to the well-being of another person or of other people in general, for example reacting to a request, or the imposing of rules.
Another use of the word fuck is as a replacement for the word God in profane statements as in "For Fuck's sake!". For example "Fuck knows" means something like "I don't know, and neither is anyone ever likely to know". Meanwhile, fuck can be used as a negation, as in "I don't know fuck all", for "I don't know anything".
Writing
Secondary meanings
The first sentence means "Why are you copulating in my bed?", while the second merely emphasizes the sentence "What are you doing in my bed?". The second usage is more common than the first.Linguistics
Verb
The word can be used as a verb transitively:
Or intransitively:
Or as an impersonal command:
Noun
As a noun:
- He is a real fuck.
- She is a good fuck.
- What the fuck?!
Interjection
The interjection fuck is frequently used to express shock, discontent and anger in general.- Fuck! A punctured tire!
Present participle
The present participle fucking (or fuckin' ) is commonly used to intensify a verb or noun. As described earlier, it is used more negatively than positively.- My fucking boss gave me tons of fucking work to do.
- She is fucking beautiful.
- That was abso-fuckin-lutely cool!
- Ex-fuckin-cuse me!
- In-fuckin-credible
Portmanteau
Prepended to another word, the sound "f" is sometimes used to evoke the entire expletive, with an intensifying sense. (See portmanteau.)
- That's fugly (fucking ugly).
History of usage and censorship
Early usage
The earliest reference appears to be the name 'John Le Fucker', which John Ayto's Dictionary of Word Origins dates to 1278. What John did to earn this name is unknown.Its first known use as a verb meaning to fornicate is in a poem titled Flen flyys some time before 1500. Written half in English and half in Latin, the poem includes the word "fuccant", a hybrid of English root with Latin conjugation, disguised in the text by a simple code. It was originally written as "gxddbov", and is decrypted by substituting each letter with the letter which precedes it in the alphabet (keep in mind the alphabet that was used at the time).
William Dunbar's 1503 poem Brash of Wowing includes the lines: "Yit be his feiris he wald haif fukkit:/ Ye brek my hairt, my bony ane."
While Shakespeare never used the term explicitly, he may have hinted at it in comic scenes in several plays. The Merry Wives of Windsor (IV.i) contains focative case (see vocative case). In Henry V (IV.iv), Pistol threatens to firk (strike) a soldier, a euphemism for fuck.
Rise of modern usage
Fuck did not appear in any dictionary of the English language from 1795 to 1965. Its first appearance in the Oxford English Dictionary (along with the word cunt) was in 1972.
In 1900, the Prince Albert Edward, Prince of Wales said "Fuck it, I've taken a bullet" when he was shot by an anarchist while standing on a Brussels railway station.
The liberal usage of the word (and other vulgarisms) by certain artists (such as James Joyce, Henry Miller, and Lenny Bruce) has led to the banning of their works and criminal charges of obscenity.
After Norman Mailer's publishers convinced him to bowdlerize fuck as fug in his work The Naked and the Dead (1948), Tallulah Bankhead supposedly greeted him with the quip, "So you're the young man who can't spell fuck." (In fact, according to Mailer, the quip was from a PR man and he and Bankhead never met until 1966 and did not discuss the word then.)
Censorship
In 1965, the critic Kenneth Tynan was the first person to say fuck on BBC television, during a late-night live talk show, hosted by Eamonn Andrews, causing a furor and a short TV career for Tynan. For British broadcasting, the next stage was reached in 1976 when the word was pointedly used in a prime-time early evening show, during a live interview with the Sex Pistols.
The films Ulysses and I'll Never Forget What's'isname (both 1967) are contenders for being the first film to use the word. Since the U.S. adoption of the MPAA film rating system, use of the word has been accepted in R-rated movies. (A single, strictly exclamatory use of the word is allowed in PG-13 movies). Since the 1970s, the use of the word fuck in R-rated movies has become so commonplace in mainstream American movies that it is rarely noticed by most audiences. Nonetheless, a few movies have made exceptional use of the word, to the point where such films as Scarface (1983), Pulp Fiction and Goodfellas are known for its extensive use. In the popular comedy Four Weddings and a Funeral, it is the chief word, repeatedly uttered, during the opening five minutes. In two PG-rated movies, however, the word is used, mainly because at the time there was no PG-13 rating and the MPAA did not want to give the films "R" ratings: All the President's Men (1976), where it is used seven times, and The Right Stuff (1983), where it is used five times.
In a similar vein, many stand-up comedians who perform for adult audiences make liberal use of the word fuck. While George Carlin's use of the word is an important part of his stage persona, other comedians (such as Andrew Dice Clay) have been accused of substituting vulgarity and offensiveness for genuine creativity through overuse of the word. Billy Connolly was a pioneer of the use of the word in his shows for general audiences.
Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau caused a minor scandal when opposition MPss stated he had told them to "fuck off" in the House of Commons in February 1971. Pressed by journalists, Trudeau later unconvincingly stated he may have said (or mouthed) "'fuddle duddle' or something like that"[1], a phrase which then took on a humorous connotation of that event for Canadians.
During the tumultuous 1968 Democratic National Convention, Connecticut Senator Abraham Ribicoff, during a speech in which he nominated the anti-Vietnam War candidate George McGovern, departed from his written text to say, "If George McGovern were president, we wouldn’t have these Gestapo tactics in the streets of Chicago." Many conventioneers, having been appalled by the response of the Chicago police to the simultaneously occurring anti-war demonstrations, promptly broke into ecstatic applause. As television cameras focused on an indignant Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley, lip-readers throughout America claimed to have observed him shouting, "Fuck you, you Jew motherfucker." Defenders of the mayor would later claim that he was calling Senator Ribicoff a faker.
Freedom of expression
In 1971, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that the mere public display of fuck is protected under the First and Fourteenth Amendments and cannot be made a criminal offense. In 1968, Paul Robert Cohen had been convicted of "disturbing the peace" for wearing a jacket with "FUCK THE DRAFT" on it. The conviction was upheld by the Court of Appeals and overturned by the Supreme Court. Cohen v. California, 403 U.S. 15. (1971).
Pornographer Larry Flynt, representing himself before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1983 in a libel case, shouted "Fuck this court!" during the proceedings and called the justices "nothing but eight assholes and a token cunt". Chief Justice Warren E. Burger had him arrested for contempt of court but the charge was later dismissed.
Popular usage
Various people (primarily musical guests) have said the word on the weekly American late-night comedy show Saturday Night Live, generally with little consequence. On the February 26, 1981 show Charles Rocket, playing J.R. Ewing, said clearly, "Oh man, it's the first time I've been shot in my life. I'd like to know who the fuck did it." He and the rest of the cast (except Joe Piscopo and Eddie Murphy) were fired soon thereafter. The show was in a slump at the time, so Rocket's indiscretion may only have been the straw that broke the camel's back.
Following the death of Monty Python legend Graham Chapman in 1989, a memorial speech was held on his behalf read by fellow Monty Python actor John Cleese, which claims to be the first time someone has said the word fuck in a British memorial service.
The Channel 4 television comedy series Father Ted introduced to 90s Britain an Irish swear-word which was almost fuck and not quite a euphemism, prolifically used by the drunken and lecherous priest Father Jack Hackett: feck. This was originally a term meaning to steal and is probably derived from the word fetch. This term is becoming a common substitute for fuck in the United Kingdom as a consequence of the popularity of this series, and has been further bowlderized into feth.
In the United States, the Federal Communications Commission fines stations for the broadcast of indecent language, but in 2003 ruled that the airing of "this is really, really fucking brilliant!" by U2 member Bono after receiving a Golden Globe Award was neither obscene nor indecent. In early 2004 the FCC decided to review that use saying "The F-word is one of the most vulgur, graphic and explicit descriptions of sexual activity in the English language"; a fine may result.
The first American play with the word fuck in the title is "Sex, Fucking and Making Love". It is being produced in New York Fall 2004 by Genesis Productions Worldwide, LLC as an Off Off Broadway production. http://www.sfml.info/
Maybe this came due to the release of the controversial R&B song, "Fuck It (I Don't Want You Back)" by Eamon, which was quite successful in the US, and also became the first song with an obscenity in its title to reach #1 in the UK, Australia and other countries in April 2004. A reply to that song, titled "F.U.R.B. (Fuck U Right Back)", by Frankee was also very successful, and also reached #1 in the UK in May 2004, and then in Australia in June 2004.
On June 22, 2004, while participating in the U.S. Senate class photo, Vice President Dick Cheney and Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy from Vermont had a personal exchange that garnered headlines in the United States. After comments by Leahy, Cheney allegedly told him to "...go fuck yourself," which was later characterized as "a frank exchange of views." In response, Leahy said that Cheney "was just having a bad day." Others have pointed to this incident and the events that led up to it as evidence of a culture of extreme partisanship that has developed in Washington. Senate rules prohibit profanity while the Senate is in session, but Cheney did not violate the rules because the Senate was not in session at the time.
Most broadcasters replace fuck (and other so-called four-letter words) on broadcast television and radio with a beep "at times of day when there is a reasonable risk that children may be in the audience", or have the word/words silenced out, or a reverse of the sound of the word/words in question is used.
Etymology
Its root is unclear; its earliest recorded use is before 1500, from the English-Latin poem Flen flyys: "Non sunt in celi quia fuccant uuiuys of heli" ("They are not in heaven because they fuck the wives of Ely").
There is an evident connection to the German word ficken (to fuck, in dialects: to rub, to scratch, and historically: to strike), and to the Latin futuere (hence the French foutre, the Italian fottere, the vulgar peninsular Spanish follar and joder, and the Portuguese foder), but there is considerable doubt and no clear lineage for these derivations. These roots, even if cognate, are not the original Indo-European word for to fuck; that root is likely *yebh-, which is attested in Sanskrit and the Slavic languages, among others.
It has cognates in other Germanic languages, such as Middle Dutch fokken (to thrust, to copulate), dialectical Norwegian fukka (to copulate), and dialectical Swedish focka (to strike, copulate) and fock (penis).
There is perhaps even an original Celtic derivation; futuere being related to battuere (to strike, to copulate); which may be related to Irish bot and Manx bwoid (penis). The argument is that battuere and futuere (like the Irish and Manx words) comes from the Celtic *bactuere (to pierce), from the root buc- (a point). An even earlier root may be the Egyptian petcha (to copulate), which has a highly suggestive hieroglyph.
Part of the reason for the difficulty of the etymology is that the word was too taboo for the original Oxford English Dictionary.
There are many imaginative, false folk etymologies, including the backronyms "Fornication Under Consent of the King", which was supposedly placed on signs above houses in medieval England during times of population control, and "For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge", supposedly written on the stocks above people who committed adultery or "Forced Unlawful Carnal Knowledge" in various things linked to rape cases. These acronyms were never heard before the 1960s, according to the authoritative lexicographical work, The F-Word. See also fake etymology.
²Thai has a medical word for sexual intercourse (which translated back means "genitalia touching") and at least two slang versions for it. But even the slang versions wouldn't work as insults. To the amusments of Thais, the name of the German automaker Audi sounds like one of the two slang versions. To confuse matters, Thais have a vegetable whose name sounds like "fuck" (it irritates some tourists when they hear the name because they think they are being insulted). But the correct pronounciation for this vegetable is "fug" with the "g" like in "guest".
The verb fuck in different languages
¹The word "fuck", in its English usage, is untranslatable into Japanese. A term like "Fuck you!" is typically translated into something like "Kono Kusoyarou!" (literally You are shit!). The existence of the word "fuck" in English has led to discussions in Japan on why Japanese does not have an insult like "fuck".Further reference
See also
External links