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Fuck is an English word that, as a transitive verb, means "to have sexual intercourse with". It also has various metaphorical meanings:
The word's use is considered obscene in polite circles, but may be common in informal and domestic situations. It is unclear whether the word has always been considered vulgar, and if not, when it first came to be used to describe (often in an extremely angry, hostile or belligerent manner) unpleasant circumstances or people in an intentionally offensive way, such as in the term motherfucker, one of its more common usages in some parts of the English-speaking world.
In the modern English-speaking world, the word fuck is often considered highly offensive.
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Encyclopedia
Fuck is an English word that, as a transitive verb, means "to have sexual intercourse with". It also has various metaphorical meanings:
- The verb "to be fucked" can mean "to be cheated" (e.g. "I got fucked by a scam artist").
- As a noun "a fuck" or "a fucker" may describe a contemptible person.
- "A fuck" may mean a sexual partner.
- "Fuck" as a verb can be used as an interjection, and its participle fucking is sometimes used as a strong emphatic. The verb to fuck may be used transitively or intransitively, and it appears in compounds, including fuck off, fuck up, and fuck with.
- In less explicit usages (but still regarded as vulgar), fuck can mean to mess around, or to deal with unfairly or harshly.
- In a phrase such as "don't give a fuck", the word is the equivalent of "damn", in the sense of something having little value. In "what the fuck", it serves merely as an intensive.
The word's use is considered obscene in polite circles, but may be common in informal and domestic situations. It is unclear whether the word has always been considered vulgar, and if not, when it first came to be used to describe (often in an extremely angry, hostile or belligerent manner) unpleasant circumstances or people in an intentionally offensive way, such as in the term motherfucker, one of its more common usages in some parts of the English-speaking world.
In the modern English-speaking world, the word fuck is often considered highly offensive. Most English-speaking countries censor it on television and radio. A study of the attitudes of the British public found that fuck was considered the third most severe profanity and its derivative motherfucker second. Cunt was considered the most severe (Hargrave, 2000). Some have argued that the prolific usage of the word fuck has de-vulgarized it, an example of the "dysphemism treadmill". Despite its offensive nature, the word is common in popular usage.
The highly profane term remains a taboo word to many people in English-speaking countries, while others feel the word remains inappropriate in social etiquette when used by a male in the presence of women. The word also carries a sacrilegious connotation to some. Many religious people oppose the use of profane, vulgar, and "curse" words which they see as offensive to a deity. Finally, it is considered highly offensive to utter the word in the presence of children.
Non-English-speaking cultures tend to recognize the word's vulgarity. However, it generally is not censored as frequently in those forums.
Proof of the more relaxed attitude about this English word in non-English countries was very publicly visible on billboards around the downtown of Paris, France in the early 1990s. They featured a woman sticking her tongue out in defiance, along with the slogan "Préservatifs Fuck le SIDA" ("Condoms fuck AIDS")..
The Canadian Press now considers the word to be commonplace and has added usage advice to the Canadian Press Caps and Spelling guide.
Etymology
The Oxford English Dictionary states that the ultimate etymology is uncertain, but that the word is "probably cognate" with a number of native Germanic words with meanings involving striking, rubbing, and having sex.
Flen flyys and freris
The usually accepted first known occurrence is in code in a poem in a mixture of Latin and English composed some time 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 (= "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 wives of Ely". The phrase was coded likely because it accused some Church personnel of misbehaving; it is uncertain to what extent the word fuck was considered acceptable at the time. (The stem of fvccant is an English word used as Latin: English medieval Latin has many examples of writers using English words when they did not know the Latin word: "workmannus" is an example.)
John le Fucker
A man's name "John le Fucker" is said to be reported from AD 1278, but the report is doubtful: an on Linguist List says:
Anglo-Saxon
An Anglo-Saxon charter granted by Offa, king of Mercia, dated AD 772, granting land at Bexhill, Sussex to a bishop, includes the text:
- Þonne syndon þa gauolland þas utlandes into Bexlea in hiis locis qui appellantur hiis nominibus: on Berna hornan .iii. hida, on Wyrtlesham .i., on Ibbanhyrste .i., on Croghyrste .viii., on Hrigce .i., on Gyllingan .ii., on Fuccerham 7 and on Blacanbrocan .i., on Ikelesham .iii.;
- Then the tax-lands of the outland belonging to Bexley are in these places which are called by these names: at Barnhorne 3 hides, at Wyrtlesham [Worsham farm near Bexhill ] 1, at Ibbanhyrst 1, at Crowhurst 8, at (Rye? The ridge north of Hastings?) 1, at Gillingham 2, at Fuccerham and at Blackbrook [may be Black Brooks in Westfield village just north of Hastings ] 1, at Icklesham 3.
The placename Fuccerham looks like either "the home (ham) of the fucker or fuckers" or "the enclosed pasture (hamm) of the fucker or fuckers", who may have been a once-notorious man, or a locally well-known stud male animal, or a group of such.
Older etymology
Via Germanic
The word fuck has probable cognates in other Germanic languages, such as German ficken (to fuck); Dutch fokken (to breed, to strike, to beget); dialectal Norwegian fukka (to copulate), and dialectal Swedish fokka (to strike, to copulate) and fock (penis).
This points to a possible etymology where Common Germanic fuk– comes from an Indo-European root meaning "to strike", cognate with non-Germanic words such as Latin pugnus "fist". By reverse application of Grimm's law, this hypothetical root has the form *pug–. In early Proto-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.
Yet another possible etymology is from the Old High German word pfluog, meaning "to plow, as in a field" (similiar pronunciation to ""fuk-"", the sexual euphemism being obvious). This is supported in part by a book by Carl Jung, Psychology of the Unconscious: A Study of the Transformations and Symbolisms of the Libido, in which he discusses the "primitive play of words" and the phallic representation of the plough, including its appearance on a vase found in an archaeological dig near Florence, Italy, which depicts six ithyphallic men (erect penises) carrying a plow.
The original Indo-European root for to copulate is likely to be * h3yebh– or *h3eybh–, which is attested in Sanskrit ???? (yabhati), Russian ????? (yebat), Polish jebac, and Serbian jebati, among others: compare the Greek verb ??f? (oípho) = "I have sex with", and the Greek noun ??f???? (Zéphyros) (which references a Greek belief that the west wind Zephyrus caused pregnancy).
Via Latin or Greek
- Other possible connections are to Latin futuere (almost exactly the same meaning as the English verb "to fuck"); but it would have to be explained how the word reached Scandinavia from Roman contact, and how the
t became k. From futuere came French foutre, Catalan fotre, Italian fottere, Romanian futere, vulgar peninsular Spanish follar and joder, and Portuguese foder. However, there is considerable doubt and no clear lineage for these derivations. These roots, even if cognates, are not the original Indo-European word for to copulate, but Wayland Young (who agrees that these words are related) argues that they derive from the Indo-European *bhu– or *bhug– ("be", "become"), or as causative "create" [see Young, 1964]. A possible intermediate might be a Latin 4th-declension verbal noun *futus, with possible meanings including "act of (pro)creating". A derivation from Latin facere = "to do", "to make" has been suggested. Greek phyo (f??) has various meanings, including (of a man) "to beget", or (of a woman), "to give birth to". Its perfect tense pephyka (pef??a) can be likened to "fuck" and its equivalents in other Germanic languages.
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 were 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. Some of these urban legends are:
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. Another theory is that of a royal permission. During the Black Death in the Middle Ages, towns were trying to control populations and their interactions. Since uncontaminated resources were scarce, many towns required permission to have children. Hence, the legend goes, that couples that were having children were required to first obtain royal permission (usually from a local magistrate or lord) and then place a sign somewhere visible from the road in their home that said "Fornicating Under Consent of King", which was later shortened to "FUCK". This story is hard to document but has persisted in oral and literary traditions for many years, this however has been demonstrated to be an urban legend That it came from any of:- "Fornication Under Carnal/Cardinal Knowledge"
- "Fornication Under the Christian King"
- "False Use of Carnal Knowledge"
- "Felonious Use of Carnal Knowledge"
- "Felonious Unlawful Carnal Knowledge"
- "Full-On Unlawful Carnal Knowledge"
- "For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge"
- "Found Under Carnal Knowledge"
- "Found Unlawful Carnal Knowledge"
- "Forced Unlawful Carnal Knowledge", referring to the crime of rape.
Usage history
Early usage
Its first known use as a verb meaning to have sexual intercourse is in "Flen flyys", written around 1475.
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).
John Florio's 1598 Italian-English dictionary, A Worlde of Wordes, included the term, along with several now-archaic, but then vulgar synonyms, in this definition:
To jape, to sard, to fucke, to swive, to occupy.
Of these, "occupy" and "jape" still survive as verbs, though with less profane meanings, while "sard" was a descendant of the Anglo-Saxon verb seordan (or seorðan, <ON serða), to copulate; and "swive" had derived from earlier swifan, to revolve.
While Shakespeare never used the term explicitly; he hinted at it in comic scenes in a few plays. The Merry Wives of Windsor (IV.i) contains the expression focative case (see vocative case). In Henry V (IV.iv), Pistol threatens to firk (strike) a soldier, a euphemism for fuck. Also in Henry V Princess Katherine asks her waiting maid (III.4, in French) how one says "pied" in English, and is told in reply that the English word is "foot". This embarrasses the Princess because foot is pronounced the same as French "foutre", meaning fuck.
Rise of modern usage
Though it appeared in John Ash's 1775 A New and Complete Dictionary, listed as "low" and "vulgar", and appearing with several definitions, 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. There is anecdotal evidence of its use during the American Civil War.
Modern usage
Most literally, to fuck is to copulate, but it is also used as a more general expletive or intensifier. Some instances of the word can be taken at face value, such as "Let's fuck," "I would fuck her/him", or "He/she fucks."
Other uses are dysphemistic: The sexual connotation, usually connected to masturbation (in the case of "go fuck yourself" or "go fuck your ass") is invoked to incite additional disgust, or express anger or outrage. For example, "Fuck that!", "Fuck no!", "Fuck off", or "Fuck you!".
By itself, fuck is usually used as an exclamation, indicating surprise, pain, fear, disgust, disappointment, anger, or a sense of extreme elation. In this usage, there is no connection to the sexual meaning of the word implied, and is used purely for its "strength" as a vulgarity. Additionally, other uses are similarly vacuous; fuck (or variations such as "the fuck" or "fucking") could be removed and leave a sentence of identical syntactical meaning. For example, rap music often uses the word fucking as an emphatic adjective ("I'm the fucking man") for the word's rhythmic properties. Insertion of the trochaic word fucking can also be used as an exercise for diagnosing the cadence of an English-language word. This is the use of "fuck" or more specifically "fucking" as an infix, or more properly, a tmesis (see expletive infixation). For example, the word in-fucking-credible sounds acceptable to the English ear, and is in fairly common use, while incred-fucking-ible would sound very clumsy (though, depending on the context, this might be perceived as a humorous improvisation of the word). "Absofuckinglutly" and "motherfucking" are also common uses of "fuck" as an affix. While neither dysphemistic nor connected to the sexual connotations of the word, even the vacuous usages are considered offensive and gratuitous, and censored in some media. For example, "None of your fucking business!" or "Shut the fuck up!" A common insult is "Get fucked," which in a non-offensive context would translate as "get stuffed". The word is one of the few that has legitimate colloquial usage as a verb, adverb, adjective, command, conjunction, exclamatory, noun and pronoun.
In another usage, the word fucker is used as a term of endearment rather than antipathy. This usage is not uncommon; to say "you're one smart fucker" is often a term of affection. However, because of its ambiguity and vulgarity, the word fucker in reference to another person can easily be misinterpreted. Though fuck can serve as a noun, the fucker form is used in a context that refers to an individual. Normally in these cases, if fuck is used instead of fucker, the sentence refers to the sexual ability of the subject (for example, "He's a great fuck!"), although confusingly in a minority of occasions the word "fuck" can hold the exact same meaning as "fucker" (e.g. when preceded by an adjective: "You're a pretty clever fuck.").
Related to fucker is the word motherfucker. Sometimes used as an extreme insult—an accusation of incest—this term is also occasionally used to connote respectful awe. For example, "He's a mean motherfucker" does not mean "He's abusive, filthy and copulates with his mother," but "He's someone to be afraid of." In this context, some gang members might even describe themselves as "motherfuckers." Motherfucker can be used as a rhythmic filler in hip hop, rap or dance music. The word "fuck" is used in many forms of music. A good example of this is in The Crystal Method's song "Name of the Game." At about 3:30 into the song, there's a dramatic buildup and then a sudden pause. To fill the space, an audio sample of someone exclaiming motherfucker (or, as it's pronounced, "mutha fucka") is injected, filling the gap with perfect rhythm. Perhaps motherfucker's rhythmic compatibility is due to its quadrisyllabic pronunciation, making it a natural fit for popular music that is written in 4/4 metre. Also contributing to its use in aggressive, high-energy music is the fact that it includes a hard "k" sound in its third syllable, making it easy to exclaim, particularly when pronounced as "mutha fucka." Despite these rhythmic qualities, motherfucker has not become as accepted in English usage as its root fuck.
A more succinct example of the flexibility the word is its use as almost every word in a sentence. The phrase "Fuck you, you fucking fuck!" is a memorable quote from the movie Blue Velvet from 1986, and is still used today as heard in Strapping Young Lad's "You Suck" from their 2006 album The New Black. Another example is, "Fuck the fucking fuckers!"
Because of its vulgar status, the word fuck is usually restricted in mass media and barred from titles in the United States. In 2002, when the controversial French film Baise-moi (2000) was released in the USA, its title was changed to Rape Me, rather than the literal Fuck Me, though this may have been for effect. Similarly, the Swedish film Fucking Åmål was retitled Show Me Love.
Online forums and public blogs may censor the word by use of automatic filters. For example, Fark.com replaces the word fuck with fark. Others replace the word with asterisks (****) to censor it (and other profanities) entirely. To avert these filters, many online posters will use the word fvck. This particular alteration is in common usage at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where students use it in reference to the inscriptions on MIT's neoclassical buildings, in which the letter U is replaced by V. A typical coinage in this idiom would be "I'm fvcked by the Institvte." (Other less common spellings to cheat a censor are "fück" and "phuck.") Another way to bypass a word filter is to use leet (Fuck becomes F(_)c|< or |=(_)Ck to name a couple.)
The word fuck is a component of many acronyms, some of which—like SNAFU and FUBAR—date as far back as World War II. Many more recent coinages, such as the shorthand "WTF?" for "what the fuck?," have been widely extant on the Internet, and may count as examples of memes. Many acronyms will also have an F or MF added to increase emphasis, for example OMG (Oh My God) becomes OMFG (Oh My Fucking God).
Despite the proclaimed vulgarity of the word, several comedians rely on fuck for comedic routines. George Carlin has created several literary works based upon the word. Other comedians who use the word consistently in their routines include Denis Leary, Lewis Black, Andrew Dice Clay, Chris Rock, Richard Pryor, Martin Lawrence, Eddie Murphy, Dane Cook, and Sam Kinison.
List of recent uses
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:
The liberal usage of the word (and other vulgarisms) by certain artists (such as James Joyce, Henry Miller, Lenny Bruce, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, in their Derek and Clive personas) 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 didn't meet until 1966 and did not discuss the word then. The rock group The Fugs named themselves after the Mailer euphemism.
The science fiction novel That Hideous Strength (1945), by C.S. Lewis, includes lines of dialog with the word bucking used the same way as fugging would be in Mailer's novel, published three years later.
In his novel Ulysses (1922), James Joyce used a sly spelling pun for fuck (and cunt as well) with the doggerel verse:
Memphis Slim had a melancholy blues about lost love entitled "If You See Kay".
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, standing at number 13 for the most banned books from 1990–2000 according to the American Library Association. The book offers a blunt portrayal of the main character's reaction to the existence of the word, and all that it means.
The Australian vaudeville comedian Roy Rene once had a comedy 'skit' where he would act with another person and would write the letter 'F' on a blackboard (on stage) and then ask his co-actor: 'What letter do you see' to which he would reply: 'K'. Mo would then say: 'Why is it that whenever I write F you see K?'
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. During the football game sequence about three-quarters of the way through the film, one of the MASH linemen says to an 8063rd offensive player, "All right, bud, your fuckin' head is coming right off." Also, former Beatle John Lennon's 1971 release "Working Class Hero" featured use of the word, which was rare in music at the time and caused it to, at most, be played only in segments on the radio. In 2007, some 36 years later, Green Day did a cover of Lennon's song, which was censored for radio airplay, with the "Ph.." sound being audible but then phased out.
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.
The word was used in the 2003 film Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World by a fictional whaler describing pirates who burned his ship in 1802. The word is used occasionally in the Aubrey–Maturin series of novels of Patrick O'Brian, on which the film is based.
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 in reference to a murderer: "Mad Fucker on the Loose", or even the murderer himself: "Stop me before I fuck again!" More popularly published is his famous "Filthy Words" routine, better known as "Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television."
Incidents on British television
In 1965, the critic Kenneth Tynan was the first person to say fuck on BBC television, during BBC-3, a late-night live satirical talk show hosted by Robert Robinson, causing a furor and a short TV career for Tynan. (This incident was later immortalized by comedian Billy Connolly - himself no stranger to the "F-word" - in his song "A Four Letter Word".)
In 1973, the second person to use the word on British television was the commentator Peregrine Worsthorne in replying to a question over whether the public would care if a Government minister had shared a bed with two call girls.
The word's most infamous use was probably on 1 December 1976 when the word was pointedly used in an early evening show, during a live interview with the Sex Pistols. The presenter Bill Grundy, who it was claimed had encouraged the incident, was suspended as a result.
After the death of Graham Chapman, his televised eulogy was performed by John Cleese in which he said "Graham told me that he wanted me to be the first person on a televised eulogy to say Fuck" on British television and got away with it being uncensored.
In the Stephen Fry episode of the BBC's genealogy series Who Do You Think You Are?, Fry traced members of his family back to The Holocaust, prompting upsetting revelations and his use of the word. Prior to transmission, as is customary on the channel, the announcer warned viewers saying: "This programme contains one, we feel, entirely justified use of very strong language." Poring over historical documents, an emotional Fry said on camera, "Its… it's that fucking word again: Auschwitz."
Use in politics
Fuck is not widely used in politics, and any use by notable politicians tends to produce controversy. Some events of this nature include:
- In 1965, U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson said to the Greek ambassador Alexandros Matsas when he objected to American plans in Cyprus, "Fuck your parliament and your constitution. America is an elephant. Cyprus is a flea. Greece is a flea. If these two fellows continue itching the elephant they may just get whacked by the elephant's trunk, whacked good."
- 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 debate in February 1971 in the Canadian 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 had been thinking, Mr. Trudeau famously replied "What is the nature of your thoughts, gentlemen, when you say 'fuddle duddle' or something like that?". "Fuddle duddle" consequently became a catchphrase in Canadian media associated with Trudeau.
- The first accepted modern use in the British House of Commons came in 1982 when Reg Race, Labour 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.A famous British usage of fuck comes from a 2001/2002 scandal at the Department of Transport, Local Government and the Regions, while Stephen Byers was the Minister. His press officer, Jo Moore, sent an email after the September 11, 2001 attacks suggesting it would be "a good day to bury bad news". As the scandal unravelled, Permanent Secretary to the Department, Sir Richard Mottram was widely reported to have said "We're all fucked. I'm fucked. You're fucked. The whole department is fucked. It's the biggest cock-up ever and we're all completely fucked." To British ears this was particularly amusing coming from someone so senior in the civil service. 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, United States Vice President Dick Cheney replied to criticism about Halliburton's role in the reconstruction of Iraq from Democratic senator Patrick Leahy with "fuck yourself". The media, and opposition parties were very quick to highlight the White House's stance on obscenities uttered in this manner, quoting their reaction to a similar outburst by John Kerry in December 2003. Ironically, Cheney's outburst occurred on the same day that the Defense of Decency Act was passed in the Senate.In February 2005, British media chief Alastair Campbell accidentally sent the email "Just spoke to trev. think tbwa shd give statement to newsnight saying party and agency work together well and nobody here has spoken to standard. Posters done by tbwa according to political brief. Now fuck off and cover something important you twats!" to the Newsnight journalist Andrew McFadyen, instead of a party official. Trev. refers to Trevor Beattie the boss of TBWA.In February 2006 (Australia), New South Wales Premier Morris Iemma, while awaiting the start of a Council of Australian Governments 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. On January 31, 2007, New York Governor Eliot Spitzer angrily retorted to Assembly Minority Leader James Tedisco, "Listen, I'm a fucking steamroller, and I'll roll over you and anybody else." According to The New York Post, Spitzer confirmed the exchange the following day. In April 2007, New Zealand Education Minister Steve Maharey said "fuck you" to a fellow MP during parliamentary question time. He apologized shortly afterwards.In December 2008, recorded telephone conversations revealed Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich trying to sell President Barack Obama's Senate seat. In the phone conversation, Blagojevich said in referring to the Senate seat, "I've got this thing and it's fucking golden and I'm just not giving it up for fuckin' nothing." In the recorded conversations, Blagojevich also referred to Obama as a "motherfucker" and repeatedly said "fuck him". Blagojevich also said Tribune Company ownership should be told to "fire those fuckers" in reference to Chicago Tribune editors critical of him.
Censorship
The films Ulysses and I'll Never Forget What's'isname (both 1967) are contenders for being the first film to use the word 'fuck,' although the word 'fucking' is clearly mouthed silently in the film Sink the Bismarck! (1960). Since the U.S. adoption of the MPAA film rating system, use of the word has been accepted in R-rated movies, and under the older rules, use of the word in a sexual way would automatically cause the film to be given an R rating. Later changes could allow for a maximum of three, non-sexual, strictly exclamatory use of the word in PG-13 movies, extreme example being the movies The American President and Nine Months (this is more of a guideline than a rule, however, since the MPAA states it has no strict rules on how a movie is rated).
In 1968, The Beatles' "White Album" had the word censored in their track "Revolution 9" in which band member George Harrison exclaims "So I joined the fucking navy and sailed to sea." Just two years later in 1970 fellow Beatle John Lennon successfully got the word past the censors on his song "Working Class Hero" with the lines "They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool, till you're so fucking crazy you can't follow their rules" and "You think you're so clever and classless and free, but you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see."
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 Good Will Hunting, Casino, The Last Detail, Menace II Society, The Big Lebowski, The Departed, Scarface (1983), Pulp Fiction, Blue Velvet, Forrest Gump, South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, and Goodfellas as well as the HBO TV series The Sopranos are known for its extensive use. In the movie Meet the Parents, and its sequel Meet the Fockers, the main character's last name of "Focker" is a running joke (not to mention the fact that his first name is “Gaylord”). In the popular comedy Four Weddings and a Funeral, it is the chief word, repeatedly uttered, during the opening five minutes. To many, one of the most humorous tirades demonstrating various usages of the word appears in the comedy, Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987), where Steve Martin expresses his dissatisfaction in his treatment by a rental car agency.
In several 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; for instance, All the President's Men (1976), where it is used seven times; The Kids Are Alright (1979), where it is used twice; and The Right Stuff (1983), where it is used five times. Spaceballs (1987) is one of two anomalies in that it was rated PG after the 1984 introduction of the PG-13 rating, yet it includes Dark Helmet's line, "'Out of order'?! Fuck! Even in the future nothing works!" The other is Big (1988) which has the character of Billy asking Tom Hanks's character, "Who the fuck do you think you are?" In the PG-13 rated movie Soapdish (1991), Sally Field, played an aging soap opera actress. Appalled that her costume included a turban, she complained to her show's producer "What I feel like is Gloria fucking Swanson!" Also in the 1999 film "Galaxy Quest," Sigourney Weaver's character Gwen DeMarco is edited from the line "Well, fuck that!" to "Well, screw that!" The change was made to avoid a PG-13 rating, and the original line is obvious when reading her lips.
Films edited for broadcast use matching euphemisms so that lip synching will not be thrown off. One televised version of Quentin Tarantino's Jackie Brown, for instance, had the actors dub in the words frick, Nubian, and melon farmer for fuck, nigger, and motherfucker, respectively. In similarly dubbed versions of Die Hard and Die Hard 2, Bruce Willis' catchphrase "Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker" is replaced by "Yippee-ki-yay, Mister Falcon" or "Yippee-ki-yay, Kemo Sabe." In the film The Big Lebowski, John Goodman's character repeatedly yells "This is what you get when you fuck a stranger in the ass" while trashing a car. It was infamously censored on television as "You see what happens when you find a stranger in the alps!" His character also repeatedly says to Steve Buscemi's character, "Shut the fuck up, Donny," or "Donny, shut the fuck up." When on television, "fuck" is censored with "hell."
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 and Lenny Bruce were pioneers of the use of the word in their shows for general audiences.
Recently, the hip-hop group Black-Eyed Peas' hit song "Don't Phunk With My Heart" was censored on many radio stations to "Don't Mess With My Heart", establishing a new trend toward eliminating all euphemisms for "fuck" as well as the word itself. James Blunt's first major song, You're Beautiful, featured the line "she could see from my face that I was fucking high" - this was censored to "flying high" for broadcasting purposes.
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", "the joy of fcuk", etc.
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.
Band names
The word "fuck" has been used in a number of band names, generally based on common compounds. Although most of these bands are in the aggressive, non-mainstream genres of punk and metal, others fall into the categories of more accessible forms of electronic rock and pop.
Holy fuck
"Holy fuck" is a widely used example of 'liturgical profanity' used interjectionally to express anger, contempt, disgust, or amazement. Usually vulgar. Noted by academics and used in literature , deriving its power from a combination of the sacred, holy, and the profane, fuck. An exclamation, similar to "holy shit!", but more offensive, also used informally for sex within a religious context.
Occurrence in machine mistranslations
The word fuck occurs sometimes in Chinese/English bilingual public notices in China as a machine translation of the Simplified Chinese character ? which can also mean "dry" and "do", e.g. "spread to fuck the fruit" for "loose dried fruit", "fuck to adjust the area" for "dry seasonings section", "fuck the certain price of goods" for "dry foods price counter". The fault occurred in some versions of commonly-used Chinese to English machine translators, for example Jinshan (?? = "Gold Mountain") by Kingsoft.
Common alternatives
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, feck, fudge or any of a number of similar sounding nonsense words. In print, there are alternatives such as, "F***", "F – – k", etc.; or the use of a string of non-alphanumeric characters, for example, "@$#*%!" and similar (especially favored in comic books).
A common replacement word used mainly on the internet is fsck, derived from the name of the Unix file system checking utility. In Battlestar Galactica the bowdlerized form 'Frack' (spelt 'Frak' in the reimagined 2003 version) was used as a substitute for fuck. The word is sometimes jokingly used as a curse by fans and occasionally referenced in other series that appeal to a similar demographic.
See also
Further reading
- Hargrave, Andrea Millwood (2000). London: Advertising Standards Authority, British Broadcasting Corporation, Broadcasting Standards Commission, Independent Television Commission.
- Jesse Sheidlower,
The F Word (1999) ISBN 0375706348. Presents hundreds of uses of fuck and related words. Michael Swan, Practical English Usage, OUP, 1995, ISBN 0194311988. Phillip J. Cunningham, Zakennayo!: The Real Japanese You Were Never Taught in School, Plume (1995) ISBN Wayland Young, Eros Denied: Sex in Western Society. Grove Press/Zebra Books, New York 1964.
Books
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 Philip 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.Carl Jung, Psychology of the Unconscious: A Study of the Transformations and Symbolisms of the Libido. Moffat, Yard and Company, New York 1916. Translated by Beatrice M. Hinkle, M.D., Neurological Dept. of Cornell University Medical School and of the New York Post Graduate Medical School.Richard Dooling, Blue Streak: Swearing, Free Speech & Sexual Harassment, (1996) ISBN 0-679-44471-8. Chapters on famous swear words, including the f-word, and the laws pertaining to their use.
External links
- discusses how American newspapers decide whether or not to print
fuck. Some etymological research on the word 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.
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