Fuck

For other uses, see Fuck (disambiguation).

Fuck is an English word which, when used literally as a verb, means "to engage in sexual intercourse". It is generally considered to be an offensive profanity.

It is unclear whether the word has always been considered vulgar, and if not, when it first started to be considered vulgar. Some evidence indicates that in some English-speaking locales it was considered acceptable as late as the 17th century meaning "to strike" or "to penetrate." Other evidence indicates that it may have become vulgar as early as the 16th century in England, although neither set of evidence is inherently contradictory to the other, since many words have multiple connotations. The word became increasingly offensive over time because of its usage to describe (often in an extremely angry, hostile or belligerent manner) negative or unpleasant circumstances or people in an intentionally offensive way, such as in the term "motherfucker," one of its more common usages.

Fuck is used not only as a verb (transitive and intransitive), but also as a noun, interjection, and, occasionally, as an expletive infix. The etymology of the word is uncertain (see below).

Etymology

Sources such as the Oxford English Dictionary contend the true etymology of fuck is still uncertain but appears to point to an Anglo-Saxon origin.

The first known occurrence, in code, is in a poem composed in a mixture of Latin and English sometime before 1500. The poem, which satirizes the Carmelite friars of Cambridge, England, takes its title, "Flen flyys", from the first words of its opening line, "Flen, flyys, and freris"; that is, "Fleas, flies, and friars". The line that contains fuck reads "Non sunt in coeli, quia gxddbov xxkxzt pg ifmk". Removing the substitution cipher on the phrase "gxddbov xxkxzt pg ifmk" yields "non sunt in coeli, quia fvccant vvivys of heli", which translated means "they are not in heaven because they fuck the wives of Ely" (fvccant is a fake Latin form). The phrase was coded because of its meaning; it is uncertain to what extent the word itself was considered acceptable.

Other possible connections are to Latin futuere (almost exactly the same meaning as the English verb "to fuck"), (hence the French foutre, the Catalan fotre, the Italian fottere, the Romanian fute, the vulgar peninsular Spanish follar and joder, and the Portuguese foder). However, 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 copulate; that root is likely *h³yebh-, ("h³" is the H3 laryngeal) which is attested in Sanskrit (yabhati) and the Slavic languages (Russian ебать (yebat'), Polish jebać, Serbian јебати (jebati)), among others: compare Greek "oiphô", and Greek "zephyros" (noun, ref. a Greek belief that the west wind caused pregnancy). However, Wayland Young (who agrees that these words are related) argues that they derive from the Indo-European *bhu- or *bhug-, believed to be the root of "to be", "to grow", and "to build". [Young, 1964]

Spanish follar has a different root; according to Spanish etymologists, the Spanish verb follar"(attested in the 19th century) derives from fuelle ("bellows") from Latin folle(m) < Indo-European *bhel-; ancient Spanish verb folgar (attested in the 15th century) derived from Latin follicare, also ultimately from follem/follis.

A possible etymology is suggested by the fact that the Common Germanic fuk-, by an application of Grimm's law, would have as its most likely Indo-European ancestor *pug-, which appears in Latin and Greek words meaning "fight" and "fist". In early Common Germanic the word was likely used at first as a slang or euphemistic replacement for an older word for intercourse, and then became the usual word for intercourse. Then, fuck has cognates in other Germanic languages, such as Middle Dutch fokken (to thrust, copulate, or to breed), 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). Or perhaps Latin futuere came from the root fu, Common Indo-European bhu, meaning "be, become" and originally referred to procreation.

False etymologies

One reason that the word fuck is so hard to trace etymologically is that it was used far more extensively in common speech than in easily traceable written forms.

There are several urban-legend false etymologies postulating an acronymic origin for the word. None of these acronyms was ever heard before the 1960s, according to the authoritative lexicographical work, The F-Word, and thus are backronyms. In any event, the word fuck has been in use far too long for some of these supposed origins to be possible.

One such legend holds that the word fuck came from Irish law. If a couple were caught committing adultery, they would be punished "For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge In the Nude", with "FUCKIN" written on the stocks above them to denote the crime.

Other explanations for fuck as an acronym for adultery offer alternative wordings, such as "Fornication Under Carnal/Cardinal Knowledge," or "Fornication Under [the] Control/Consent/Command of the King." Variations on this theme include, "Fornication Under the Christian King", "False Use of Carnal Knowledge", "Felonious Use of Carnal Knowledge", "Felonious Unlawful Carnal Knowledge", "Full-On Unlawful Carnal Knowledge", and "Found Under Carnal Knowledge"; and the closely related variant, "Forced Unlawful Carnal Knowledge" — a label supposedly applied to the crime of rape.

In some reports, there are tombstones around English cemeteries that had the word engraved in uppercase letters. These referred to those who were put to death for crimes against the state and the church. These reports have yet to be corroborated since no such tombstone has been identified. Another story is that it was written in the log book as FUCK when people in the military or navy who had homosexual intercourse were being punished.

Usage history

Main article: History of the word "fuck"

Early usage

Its first known use as a verb meaning to have sexual intercourse is in "Flen flyys", written some time before 1500.

William Dunbar's 1503 poem "Brash of Wowing" includes the lines: "Yit be his feiris he wald haue fukkit: / Ye brek my hairt, my bony ane" (ll. 13–14).

Some time around 1600, before the term acquired its current meaning, windfucker was an acceptable name for the bird now known as the kestrel.

While Shakespeare never used the term explicitly; he 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 widely-consulted 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 1928, D. H. Lawrence's novel Lady Chatterley's Lover gained notoriety for its frequent use of the words fuck, fucked, and fucking.

Perhaps the earliest usage of the word in popular music was the 1938 Eddy Duchin release of the Louis Armstrong song "Ol' Man Mose". The words created a scandal at the time, resulting in sales of 170,000 copies during the Great Depression years when sales of 20,000 were considered blockbuster. The verse reads:

(We believe) He kicked the bucket,
(We believe) Yeah man, buck-buck-bucket,
(We believe) He kicked the bucket and ol' man mose is dead,
(We believe) Ahh, fuck it!
(We believe) Buck-buck-bucket,
(We believe) He kicked the bucket and ol' man mose is dead.

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 devised by Bankhead's PR man. He and Bankhead never met until 1966 and did not discuss the word then.) The rock group The Fugs named themselves after the Mailer euphemism.

In his novel Ulysses (1922), James Joyce used a sly spelling pun for fuck (and cunt as well) with the doggerel verse:

If you see Kay,
Tell him he may.
See you in tea,
Tell him from me.

The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger featured an early use of fuck you in print. First published in the United States in 1951, the novel remains controversial to this day due to its use of the word, and offers a blunt portrayal of the main character's reaction to the existence of the word, and all that it means.

The first use of the word fuck on British television came on November 13, 1965 on the satirical show BBC-3 (no relation to the present channel of that name). The theatre critic Kenneth Tynan declared, apropos of nothing, that "I doubt if there are any rational people to whom the word 'fuck' would be particularly diabolical, revolting or totally forbidden." Kenneth Tynan was soon-after fired for his free use of the word.

One of the earliest mainstream Hollywood movies to use the word fuck was director Robert Altman's irreverent antiwar film, MASH, released in 1970 at the height of the Vietnam War. The offending word was uttered during a football game sequence.

Former Saturday Night Live cast member Charles Rocket uttered the vulgarity in one of the earliest instances of its use on television, during a 1980 episode of the show, for which he was subsequently fired.

Comedian George Carlin once commented that the word fuck ought to be considered more appropriate, because of its implications of love and reproduction, than the violence exhibited in many movies. He humorously suggested replacing the word kill with the word fuck in his comedy routine, such as in an old movie western: "Okay, sheriff, we're gonna fuck you, now. But we're gonna fuck you slow..." Or, perhaps at a baseball game: "Fuck the ump, fuck the ump, fuck the ump!" More popularly published is his famous "Filthy Words" routine, better known as "Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television."

Use in politics

Fuck is not widely used in politics, and because of this, any use by notable politicians tends to produce controversy. Some events of this nature include:

• During the 1968 Democratic National Convention, Chicago mayor Richard Daley became so enraged by a speech from Abraham A. Ribicoff that he shouted "Fuck you, you Jew motherfucker!" Daley would later claim that he was shouting "you fink, you" and calling Ribicoff a "faker."
• During a 1971 debate in the House of Commons, Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau mouthed the words "fuck off" under his breath (perhaps almost silently) at Conservative MP John Lundrigan, while Lundrigan made some comments about unemployment. Afterward, when asked by a television reporter what he said, Mr. Trudeau famously replied "Oh, I don't know... fuddle duddle, or something like that". "Fuddle duddle" consequently became a catchphrase in Canadian media associated with Trudeau.
• The first modern use in the British House of Commons came in 1982 when Reg Race, MP for Wood Green, referred to adverts placed in local newsagents by prostitutes which read "Phone them and fuck them". Hansard, the full record of debates, printed "f*** them", but even this euphemism was deprecated by the Speaker, George Thomas.
• Shortly after Tony Blair was elected Leader of the Labour Party, the then left-wing Labour MP George Galloway told a public meeting "I don't give a fuck what Tony Blair thinks" when questioned about the party's move to the right.
• In March 2002, President of the United States, George W. Bush referred to the U.S. focus on Iraq's leader, Saddam Hussein, “Fuck Saddam; we're taking him out,” at a Senate Republican Policy lunch on Capitol Hill.
• In late 2003, US presidential candidate Senator John Kerry used the word fuck in an interview with Rolling Stone. Referring to his vote in favor of the resolution authorizing President George W. Bush to use military force in Iraq, Senator John Kerry stated, "I voted for what I thought was best for the country. Did I expect Howard Dean to go off to the left and say, 'I'm against everything'? Sure. Did I expect George Bush to fuck it up as badly as he did? I don't think anybody did."
• In June 2004, US Vice President Dick Cheney told Senator Patrick Leahy to either "fuck off" or "go fuck yourself" during an exchange on the floor of the Senate, to which Patrick Leahy cried foul.
• In February 2006 (Australia), New South Wales Premier Morris Iemma, while awaiting the start of a COAG media conference in Canberra, was chatting to Victorian Premier Steve Bracks. Not realizing cameras were operating he was recorded as saying "Today? This fuckwit who's the new CEO of the Cross City Tunnel has ... been saying what controversy? There is no controversy." The exchange referred to the newly appointed CEO of a recently-opened toll road within Sydney.

Use in marketing

In April 1997, clothing retailer French Connection began branding their clothes "fcuk" (usually written in lowercase). Though they insisted it was an acronym for French Connection United Kingdom, its similarity to the word "fuck" caused controversy. French Connection fully exploited this and produced an extremely popular range of t-shirts with messages such as "fcuk this", "hot as fcuk", "mile high fcuk", "fcuk me", "too busy to fcuk", "fcuk football", "fcuk fashion", "fcuk fear", "fcuk on the beach", etc. The company recently announced that the "fcuk" label is to be phased out.

In Quebec city, t-shirts with the message "Fuck la mode" are quite common. In French Canadian, "Fuck" is a borrowed swear word which is very mild (like "rats" or "zounds".)

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 (in reference to conscription in the Vietnam War). The conviction was upheld by the Court of Appeals and overturned by the Supreme Court. Cohen v. California, 403 U.S. 15 (1971).

In 1983, pornographer Larry Flynt, representing himself before the U.S. Supreme Court in a libel case, shouted, "Fuck this court!" during the proceedings, and then called the justices "nothing but eight assholes and a token cunt" (referring to Justice Sandra Day O'Connor). Chief Justice Warren E. Burger had him arrested for contempt of court, but the charge was later dismissed on a technicality.

Popular usage

In the United States, the Federal Communications Commission fines stations for the broadcast of "indecent language", but in 2003 the agency's enforcement bureau ruled that the airing of the statement "This is really, really fucking brilliant!" by U2 member Bono after receiving a Golden Globe Award was neither obscene nor indecent. As U.S. broadcast indecency regulation only extends to depictions or descriptions of sexual or excretory functions, Bono's use of the word as a mere intensifier was not covered.

In early 2004, the full Commission reversed the bureau ruling, in an order that stated that "the F-word is one of the most vulgar, graphic and explicit descriptions of sexual activity in the English language"; a fine, however, has yet to result. Notwithstanding widespread usage and linguistic analysis to the contrary, the reversal was premised on the conclusion that the word fuck has always referred to sexual activity, a claim that the FCC neither explained nor supported with evidence. Even on cable television, which is not regulated by the FCC, few channels in the United States will broadcast the word fuck due to fear of backlash from advertisers or the FCC.

The British television show T.F.I Friday officially stood for "Thank Four It's Friday" (the reference to Four being Channel Four on which the show was broadcast). However, it was widely understood in fact to stand for "Thank Fuck It's Friday"; it has been suggested that it would have been broadcast with that title had it not been decided to broadcast it before the watershed. The show also holds the record for the most frequent use of the word fuck to a pre-watershed audience, owing to guest Shaun Ryder using the word 9 times whilst impersonating the frontman of the band The Sex Pistols, despite the best efforts of Channel 4. Ryder is now the only person to appear by name in the Channel 4 policy document. The show inspired another show named O.F.I Sunday, or "Oh Fuck It's Sunday". By 2006 there appear to be few limitations on the use of the word after the 9pm watershed on British television, and it is commonly used.

Common alternatives

Main article: Minced oath

In conversation or writing, reference to or use of the word fuck may be replaced by any of a large list of alternative words or phrases, including "the F-word" or "the F-Bomb" (a play on A-Bomb / H-Bomb), or simply, "eff" (as in "What the eff!" or "You eff-ing fool!"). In addition, there are many commonly used substitutes, such as flipping, frigging, fricking, freaking, or any of a number of similar sounding nonsense words. It may also be called "F-sharp" (as in the musical note) or "the Effenheimer". The overuse of swear words is often called "F-ing and blinding". In print, there are alternatives such as, "F***", "F - - k", etc.; or the use of a string of non-alphanumeric characters, for example, "@$#*%!" (especially favored in comic books).

In the popular 1983 film, A Christmas Story, Ralph, the main character, says the offensive word, but written into the script is its own censorship, for the audience only hears the boy say fudge. The highly popular comedy Meet the Parents spawned a 2004 sequel with the cleverly eponymous title, Meet the Fockers.

In some television science fiction shows, altered versions of the word have been created to allow characters to express themselves without getting into trouble with the censors. For example, in Farscape the word is frell, and in Battlestar Galactica the word is frack, while Red Dwarf uses smeg in a similar context. In the series Firefly, the characters will often switch to Mandarin to swear, again avoiding any accusations of indecency. A similar ploy was used in the Irish sitcom Father Ted, where the characters regularly say feck (although the term was not invented by the show's creators).

In the popular science fiction series by Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the word fuck is replaced in common usage by the charachters as zark. In the book So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish, the narrator openly uses the word in the sexual connotation. In Life, the Universe and Everything, there is a word described to be the worst word in existence. The word is belgium. Every planet in the universe except Earth knows it to be socially inacceptable, so it parallels fuck in its significance.

In the popular NBC television series Scrubs, female doctor Elliot Reid consistently uses the word "frick."

Other languages

Afrikaans

In Afrikaans, the slang word fok has been adopted as an Afrikaans equivalent of fuck (and fokkof as "fuck off"), due to the influence of English media and language in South Africa. It is sometimes written vok as in Dutch (where it means breed) but the pronunciation is identical. In the past it was sometimes used to indicate sexual intercourse, but this is not longer the case. In Afrikaans the strong expletive for sexual intercourse has always been and remains naai. Coincidently, the Afrikaans word neuk, which resembles neuken, a Dutch equivalent of fuck, is used in the context of to strike.

Chinese languages

The Shanghainese verb and adjective 发格 fage is derived from the English "fuck" and is used in the exasperated context of things or people "fucking up" or "being difficult." Although fage is often used perjoratively, the term has lost its sexual connotations. In Cantonese, the slang word 屌 diu is used in a similar way as the English word "fuck." Similar terms in Mandarin are 肏 cào (sometimes written 操), 幹 (simplified 干) gàn, and 搞 gǎo, the latter used more commonly in Taiwan.

French

In French, the word for seal (the animal) is phoque; the word for foresail is foc. Their pronunciation in French resembles that of the word fuck in English. In France French, phoque or foc sounds like the British pronunciation of fuck while in Quebec French, it sounds like the North American pronunciation, due to areal influences (although this actually is coincidental, and has no relation to the English word). As well, the English term has been adopted as the adjective fucké, a slang term commonly used in Quebec French to describe something that is broken or off-kilter, or someone who is not in their right mind. It is not considered particularly offensive.

The Quebec French word tabernacle, meaning the clerical tabernacle, is often used in the same way as fuck in English, except in sexual-related usage. It is only used as interjection, noun or adverb. Other Quebecois-french swear words (which are pretty much all of clergical origin) such as Christ or Calice are much more versatile.

Note that in Quebec French, English swearwords such as "shit" and "fuck" are considered to be much less vulgar than if used in the same context for an English speaking person.

German

The word "to fuck" literally translates as ficken, but the force of "fuck" usually equates with Scheiße "shit" or Mist "crap." Nonetheless the exclamation "fuck" itself has been borrowed into German as a swear word and is in occasional to frequent use among some (especially younger) Germans. Ficken is used much in the same way fuck is used in English and have a pronounced vulgar meaning for other (especially older) speakers. Thomas Pynchon popularized the German word among English speakers in his Gravity's Rainbow through his use of the phrase "Fickt nicht mit dem Raketemensch!" ("Don't fuck with the rocket man!")

Official censorship for language or voluntary "self-censorship" as in using alternative expressions like "the F word" is far less common in German (although Scheiße may be seen as Sch...). In addition, geographical regions differ with respect to usage and perceived profanity of swear words.

In the German language there are germanized forms of the word, like the pseudo-anglicism abgefuckt "fucked up". German as a language, especially in colloquial and often young slang, borrows deeply from English, including a limited number of English swear words; the two most common examples are fuck and shit (although North German Schiete also means "shit," but is not a loan word). Scheiße is fairly well understood as an expletive among English speakers, although often mis-pronounced with medial [z] instead of [s].

The verb ficken is historically used also in a non-sexual context, but still is related to friction. Examples include:

• ein Schwert ficken: the process of cleaning Slag, Tinder and Ash off a Sword's blade after blacksmithing it; this is done by hanging a Sandbag from the ceiling, lancing the blade through it and then quickly moving the sword back and forth until the blade is clean
• the medieval process of forcefully opening a door with the use of a battering ram.

The German word fock (/fɔk/) means "foresail". More recently, the abbreviation FAQ has been used also in German; it is often pronounced in one syllable, similarly to the US American pronunciation of fuck.

Latin

In Latin, the verb facere translates both as "to make" and "to do". The stem fac– is commonly pronounced as /fak/, and so facit ("he/she/it does") would be pronounced /fakit/. The singular imperative fac (meaning "Make!" or "Do!") is also pronounced /fak/.

The Latin word for "to fuck" is futuere.

Norwegian

In Norwegian, the word fokk means either foresail or something that gets blown in strong wind; drifting snow (snøfokk) or streaks of foam and spray at sea. A Norwegian expletive which is somewhat analogous to the English fuck is the the word faen. This is short for fanden, a Norwegian word for devil. Knulle or pule is the most vulgar Norwegian colloquialism describing sexual intercourse. It is also common to use fuck in Norwegian conversations, like "fuck dette, jeg vil gjøre noe annet", ("fuck this, I want to do something else").

Swedish

In Swedish, the morpheme fack is pronounced almost identically to the English fuck, and means a box or compartment, for example a letterbox for internal mail. As a prefix, the morpheme fack refers to something pertaining to a certain trade or profession, for example in the words facklitteratur (literature pertaining to a certain profession) and fackförening (trade union, colloquially referred to as facket).

Fuck can also be used in colloquial Swedish as an English loan word, with basically the same meanings as in English.

Further reference

• Hargrave, Andrea Millwood (2000). Delete Expletives? London: Advertising Standards Authority, British Broadcasting Corporation, Broadcasting Standards Commission, Independent Television Commission.
• Jesse Sheidlower, The F Word (1999) ISBN 0-375-70634-8. Presents hundreds of uses of fuck and related words.
• Michael Swan, Practical English Usage, OUP, 1995, ISBN 0-19-431197-X
• Phillip J. Cunningham, Zakennayo!: The Real Japanese You Were Never Taught in School, Plume (1995) ISBN 0-452-27506-7
• Wayland Young, Eros Denied: Sex in Western Society. Grove Press/Zebra Books, New York 1964.

See also

• List of films ordered by uses of the word fuck
• Sexual slang
• Profanity
• Censorship
• Four-letter word
• Euphemism
• Fucking, Austria
• KCUF
• Madonna on Letterman
• Seven dirty words
• FCUK
• Harcourt interpolation

Derivative words

• Feck
• Motherfucker
• Ratfucking
• Brainfuck
• Uncle Fucka

External links

• Re: the Cheney-Leahy incident, slate.com discusses how newspapers decide whether or not to print fuck.
• "Online Etymology Dictionary." Some Etymology Research
• Usage of the Word Fuck (sound file), a famous (though factually incorrect) piece of Internet humor, variously and incorrectly attributed to Monty Python and George Carlin. Recorded anonymously with a Vivaldi soundtrack, it is believed to be the voice of Jack Wagner. [2]
• Flash animation of the above sound file.
• Fuck, academic paper exploring the legal implications of the word, by Christopher M. Fairman, Ohio State University - Michael E. Moritz College of Law March 2006. Ohio State Public Law Working Paper No. 59