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For the indie rock band Fuck, see Fuck (band).
For the Andy Warhol film Fuck, see Blue Movie.

While the word fuck, used literally, refers to sexual intercourse, it is commonly considered vulgar in this usage. It is more commonly considered to be one of the most impolite and flexible curse words in the English language. It can be used as a verb, noun, adjective, adverb, or interjection.

It is unclear whether the word has always been considered impolite and, if not, when it was initially considered to be profane. 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. Other reputable sources such as the Oxford English Dictionary contend the true etymology is still uncertain but appears to point to an Anglo-Saxon origin that in later times spread to the British colonies and worldwide.

The two seemingly contradictory hypotheses may reflect cultural and/or regional English dialects. See the etymology for further discussion.

I do it to my cchildrin all night long gigedy gigedy gigedy

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" (see above) some time before 1500.

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."

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.

In the small villages in almost all English-speaking countries this word was widely used with current primary meaning (ex. "Fuck off", "Fucking ...", etc).

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 gained notoriety for his novel, "Lady Chatterley's Lover," for its frequent use of the words "fuck", "fucked", and "fucking".

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.

The first short story to include fuck in its title was probably Kurt Vonnegut's "The Big Space Fuck", originally published in 1972. Exhibiting Vonnegut's characteristic blend of pessimism and humor, this story tells of a polluted and overpopulated Earth. On midnight, 4 July 1989, the United States fires the Arthur C. Clarke, a missile whose warhead contains eight hundred pounds of freeze-dried semen, aiming at the Andromeda Galaxy. This story, which contains many allusions to earlier Vonnegut works (such as character names and the "chrono-synclastic infundibula"), was written as a personal favor to Harlan Ellison. First published in Ellison's anthology Again, Dangerous Visions, it is reprinted in Palm Sunday.

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!"

During a 1971 debate in the House of Commons, Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau mouthed the words "fuck off" at Conservative MP John Lundrigan, while Lundrigan made some comments about unemployment. Trudeau did this under his breath, perhaps altogether silently, but it was seen, and an issue made of it. When questioned by a television reporter about it, afterward, Mr. Trudeau used "fuddle duddle" to refer to what he had mouthed, introducing that term into the Canadian lexicon, as a euphemism for "fuck". (A common but false belief notwithstanding, Trudeau did not claim that he had actually mouthed "fuddle-duddle", but only used "fuddle-duddle" in answering the questions about what he had mouthed, rather than say "fuck" in a television interview.)

In a widely-publicized June 2004 incident, 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. The Washington Times, in a show of journalistic prudence, reported that the Vice President "urged Mr. Leahy to perform an anatomical sexual impossibility." The Vice President's words later came back to haunt him in the wake of Hurricane Katrina while touring the disaster area in Gulfport, Mississippi when local resident Ben Marble, M.D. said "Go fuck yourself, Mr. Cheney" live on international television.

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).

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

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 will broadcast the word "fuck" because of a fear of backlash from advertisers.

In German, although the word "to fuck" literally translates as "ficken", and the exclamation of "fuck" translates usually as "Scheiße" (literally shit) or "Mist" (literally crap), the exclamation "fuck" itself has been known to have been "borrowed" into the German language as a swear word and is in semi-frequent use. The same is true for the Dutch language, where the direct translation of "to fuck" would be "neuken". Its use in both languages, however, is considered less offensive than the same word in English.

Fuck you is a very strong and profane phrase in the English language. It's an insult for someone to say it to someone. The phrase is considered profanity, because it contains the word fuck. Fuck you is an expression used to show discontent with the other party. Fuck you can also mean "Go away!"

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 0375706348. Presents hundreds of uses of fuck and related words.
  • Michael Swan, Practical English Usage, OUP, 1995, ISBN 019431197X
  • Phillip J. Cunningham, Zakennayo!: The Real Japanese You Were Never Taught in School, Plume (1995) ISBN 0452275067
  • Wayland Young, Eros Denied: Sex in Western Society. Grove Press/Zebra Books, New York 1964.

See also

External links

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