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To fuck is to copulate; the term is one of the strongest vulgarisms in the English language. It is often bowdlerized as the f-word or f***.

Similar to other swearwords and taboo words, fuck is often not used in its original, literal meaning. Rather, it is an intensifier expressing nothing but the speaker's strong emotional involvement. In the book Practical English Usage, the two meanings of the word are illustrated by juxtaposing the sentences:

• What are you doing fucking in my bed?
• What are you fucking doing in my bed?

History of usage (and censorship)

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. Also in Henry V (III.iv), the French princess Katherine attempts to learn the English for foot and gown, laughing at their similarity to foutre and coun (fuck and cunt, respectively).

Fuck did not appear in any dictionary of the English language from 1795 to 1965. Its first appearance in the OED (along with the word cunt) was in 1972.

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), Talullah Bankhead scathed him with the quip, "So you're the man who can't spell fuck."

In the United States, the Federal Communications Commission forbids the use of fuck (and other so-called four-letter words) on broadcast television and radio "at times of day when there is a reasonable risk that children may be in the audience"; it is usually replaced by a beep.

In 1900, the 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.

In 1965, Kenneth Tynan was the first man to say fuck on television, on the late-night live satire program BBC3, causing a furor.

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 adoption of the MPAA film rating system, use of the word has been accepted in R-rated movies (and occasionally in PG-13 movies, though not often). 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 Pulp Fiction and Goodfellas are known for its extensive use.

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.

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.

The Channel 4 television comedy series Father Ted introduced to the mainstream a swear-word which was almost fuck and not quite a euphemism, prolifically used by the drunken and lecherous priest Father Jack Hackett: feck. This term is becoming commonplace in usage in the United Kingdom as a consequence of the popularity of this series.

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 Germanic word ficken, to strike (slang for copulate), and to the Latin futuere (hence the French foutre and Italian fottere), but there is no clear lineage.

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 acronyms "Fornication Under Consent of the King" and "For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge", supposedly written on the stocks above people who committed adultery.

References and external links

• Strange Cosmos: Origin and history of Fuck
• 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 019431197X
• Saturday Night Live FAQ