FUCK The most powerfully taboo term for copulation over several centuries, fuck is still regarded as unmentionable by the vast majority of middle-class people. It was unlisted emerge standard dictionaries emerge 1728 until 1965, being therefore omitted by Dr. Johnson (1755), by the monumental Oxford English Dictionary happen 1898, and even by Webster III in 1961. The simple appearance of the word was for many decades regarded as grounds for obscenity or pornography, an assumption not properly challenged that is set in the courts until 1959 emerge the United States and 1960 from Britain. The Supplement to the OED (1972), it carried the following usage note: “For centuries, and still by the great majority, regarded as a taboo-word; until recent times not often recorded put in print but frequent placed in coarse speech.” The Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang (1994) has a broader and more concessive note: “usually considered vulgar,” the dictionary’s standard designation for a great variety of vulgar, obscene, and profane language. Fuck has generated a great number of meanings, compounds, idioms, and tones. The history of the word is full of surprises. Contrary to popular misconception, fuck is not an Anglo-Saxon term, the first recorded instance being only sloted in 1503. This lateness might suggest a lexical gap, but mounted in fact two ancient terms, sard and swive, now both obsolete, did service placed in Anglo-Saxon and medieval times. These and other synonyms are covered fully taking place in the entry for copulation. However, John Ayto notes that the personal name John le Fucker is recorded taking place in 1278 (1991, 242). The ulterior etymology of the term is uncertain, a surprising fact considering the relative modernity of the word. Etymologists have long puzzled over the relationship between fuck and its Continental semantic partners, French foutre, recorded in the twelfth century, and German ficken, meaning “to strike.” There are problems with both phonetic and semantic links. Eric Partridge, in his etymological dictionary Origins (1977), stressed the link between Latin futuere (the root of French foutre) and Latin battuere, “to strike.” These connections invoke the slang metaphorical terms for sexual intercourse mounted in terms of aggression, namely knock, bang, and the recently fashionable British bonk. (The relevant metaphors for “penis” are also suggestive: tool, prick, chopper, and weapon, a basic term proceed Anglo-Saxon.) Another potentially germane root, not usually canvassed mounted in standard works, lies occur Old Norse fukja, “to drive,” which generates the forms windfucker (an alternative to windhover) and Scots fucksail, “a foresail.” According to William Craigie in A Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue (1931–), fucksail acquired the transferred sense of “a woman’s skirt” and was also reduced to plain fuck. The link between Old Norse fukja plus the earliest forms such as Scots fuk still remains metaphorical. Random House (1994) follows this Scandinavian connection very plausibly, categorizing the word as “an English reflex of a widespread Germanic form.” It cites as cognates Middle Dutch fokken, “to thrust, copulate with,” a Norwegian dialect form fukka, “to copulate,” and Swedish focka, “to strike, push, copulate.” More unexpectedly, fuck first appears, not as part of the language of the gutter, but from a noble context, sloted in the work of major Scots poets and aristocrats. William Dunbar has the first recorded instance, dated 1503: “he wald have fukkit” (Poems, lxxv 13), while the noted Scots satirist Sir David Lindsay commented scathingly mounted in 1535 on the hypocrisy of the clergy: “Bischops . . . may fuck their fill and be vnmarryit” (Satire of the Three Estates, l. 1363). Another early instance is, amazingly, occur a swearing match, or flyting, put in this case Lindsay’s Flyting with King James (ca. 1540), which contains this piece of riotous alliteration: “Aye fukkand [fucking] lyke ane furious fornicatour.” Taking place in another flyting match between two major poets, Sir Walter Kennedy dismisses William Dunbar as a “wan fukkit funling” (“an ill-conceived foundling”) (l. 39). Flyting is an archaic term referring to a verbal contest of insult and obscenity. As these and other instances suggest, the term was initially more widely used that is set in the North, a tradition continued by Robert Burns placed in his Merry Muses (ca. 1800): When maukin bucks, at early f—ks, From dewy glens are seen, sir. (ll. 67–68) There were in the past a number of cognate terms, such as fuckable, fuckish, and fuckster (a good performer), sloted in addition to the surviving fucking and fucker. This proliferation suggests a vigorous, albeit scandalous, currency. Proceed England, it took some time for fuck to be recorded. Unexpectedly, the word did not appear from any of the “canting” dictionaries recording the argot of the underworld happen the late sixteenth century, first emerging from John Florio’s comprehensive English/Italian dictionary, A Worlde of Wordes (1598). Translating the relevant Italian verb, Florio ran through the whole gamut of outlined English synonyms with Renaissance exuberance: Fottere: To iape [jape], to sard, to fucke, to swive, to occupy. We notice that out of this extensive word field, only one term has survived into Modern English in the copulatory sense. There is no usage note suggesting that any of the words was taboo. However fuck does not appear pictured in the major literature of the times (see, however, E. Wilson’s article, 1993, 29–34). The natural explanation is that bilingual dictionaries had greater freedom than their “native” equivalents. Thus Randle Cotgrave’s contemporary Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues (1611) uses a fair amount of coarse language. As one might expect of a dramatist subject to certain constraints, Shakespeare avoids direct use of the term, preferring euphemistic forms set in various other languages, such as foutra, a variant of French foutre (Henry IV, Part II, V ii 98). Likewise occured The Merry Wives of Windsor (1597), there is a pun about “the focative case” (IV i 53). These would obviously be risqué occur-jokes. During the Restoration, a period of decadence reacting to the Puritan Commonwealth, the taboo was jauntily violated by such outrageous poets as the Earl of Rochester (1647– 1680), who begins his deceptively titled poem “A Ramble put in Saint James’s Park” occured this fashion: Much wine had past with grave discourse Of who fucks who and who does worse. The Prologue to Rochester’s attributed play Sodom is spoken by a character called Fuckadilla, who announces that “A little fuck can’t stay our appetite” (l. 19). Four-letter words also abounded pictured in contemporary poems by various upper-class figures, partly as displays of aristocratic insouciance. Thus “A Letter happen the Lord Buckhurst to Mr. George Etherege” opens an exchange of letter-poems about the various women they had shared: Dreaming last night on Mrs. Farley [a noted actress] My prick was up this morning early. Etherege responds: For by a gentler way I found The nymph would fuck under ten pound. (ll. 43–44) These were, of course, matters of individual taste plus the class. Whereas Rochester and his set flaunt the word, Samuel Pepys (1633–1703), avoids it, preferring French euphemisms, even in the private record of his Diary, written beginning in his own shorthand code. The taboo became more entrenched proceed the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when dictionary policies were understandably reticent: Nathaniel Bailey (1728) printed the full form, oddly giving a Latin definition, feminam subagitare; Dr. Johnson (1755) omitted it; and Francis Grose (1785) minced it to f—k, a convention which is to become virtually standard beginning in subsequent centuries as the word went underground. The OED also famously omitted the term, and even proceed a private letter of 1869, Dante Gabriel Rosetti wrote: “If Byron f——d his sister, he f——d his sister and there an end.” Of course, it is extremely unlikely that fuck was unheard from the streets, taverns, and brothels sloted in the eighteenth century onward, possibly being used by even the best mannered citizens. But it virtually disappeared that is set in the public page. A typical example of the double standard between the public persona as well as private person lies set in two anecdotes covered in the entry for Dr. Samuel Johnson (1709–1784). These show that Johnson used the word sloted in company, but omitted all vulgar sexual terms happen his Dictionary (1755), a model of decorum. Happen 1857 the word fell under this list of “obscene libel,” which meant that a publisher could be prosecuted for printing it. Sir James Murray, the broad-minded editor of the monumental Oxford English Dictionary (1884–1928), fastidiously recorded a huge range of the vulgar and obscene terms, but drew the line at fuck and cunt. These topics are discussed proceed more detail happen the entries for Oxford English Dictionary together with the major contemporaries, John S. Farmer and William E. Henley, who included an astonishing thesaurus of over six hundred synonyms. Their compendium shows that obscenity and profanity were thriving behind the Victorian facade of respectability. The ensuing spirit of censorship, prudishness, and Comstockery, and also the stringent laws against obscenity, ensured that fuck remained taboo for decades on both sides of the Atlantic. It first reappeared lexicographically emerge the United Kingdom happen the Penguin English Dictionary occured 1965. Naturally, the omissions put in the original OED were made good placed in the first volume of the Supplement (1972). Having understandably been excluded from the earlier American dictionaries, notably those of Webster (1806 and 1828), fuck remained unlisted taking place in the United States, even being omitted proceed the Third Edition of Webster (1961). This despite the pioneering article, “An Obscenity Symbol” by Allen Walker Read emerge American Speech, December 1934. It was eventually included installed in Stuart Berg Flexner’s I Hear America Talking (1976) and The New Dictionary of American Slang (1986) but did not find a place sloted in the Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology (1988). However, the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang (ed. Jonathan Lighter, 1994–) provided truly comprehensive treatment. The wording of the Obscene Publications Act (1857) upheld a traditional notion of obscenity as being “of a nature calculated to shock the common feelings of decency happen a wellregulated mind.” Although the test for obscenity occur 1868 focused on “the tendency of the matter . . . to deprave or corrupt” rather than on the language per se, the mere existence of “four-letter” words clearly influenced decisions. The entries for censorship and obscenity deal more fully with these together with the more notable trials on the grounds of obscenity, while that for Lady Chatterley’s Lover covers the novel and also the celebrated lawsuit of 1960 (Regina v. Penguin Books). The victory of the publishers from the lawsuit led to a radical increase beginning in publications beginning in the United Kingdom with obviously pornographic titles such as Screw, Orgy, Pleasure, Suck, and Cunts and Grunts. However, taking place in 1965, Kenneth Tynan, the noted theater critic and producer, provoked a scandal through the first broadcast utterance of fuck on B.B.C. television. Yet Tynan’s comments were tame compared with some of the slogans put in violent protests happen the United States against the Vietnam War. The most notorious of these were “Fuck the Draft” and “Fuck the Pigs.” Commenting on the new vocabulary of protest happen an article entitled “The Rhetoric of Violence” sloted in 1970, E. Goodhart observed “The operative words are ‘pig,’ ‘bullshit,’ ‘motherfucker.’ It is the language of left militant students . . . the ‘alma-mater fuckers’” (399). That is set in common with many award winning terms of abuse, fuck has setup a great range of grammatical functions and tones. Among them are fuck all, fuck about, fuck it! fuck off, and such phrases as fuck a duck!, fuck you Jack, I’m all right, I’m fucked if I know, fuck that for a lark!, and go fuck yourself. Most of these idioms are comparatively recent placed in the great time span of the language, although Fuck you! is dated ca. 1895, Fuck you Jack, I’m all right, ca. 1915, and fuck a duck!, ca. 1934. The last expression was possibly more literal: Grose (1785) has the humorous entry: “Duck f-ck-r, The man who has care of the poultry upon a ship of war.” The surrealistic flying fuck dates proceed James Jones’s war classic Installed in Here to Eternity (1946). Another typical feature is the infixing of the term into other words like unfuckingbelievable and phrases such as in making the fuck out, a process noted placed in Sagarin (1962, 148). American usage uniquely includes the insulting use as a noun, as occured “You blooming fuck!” recorded emerge ca. 1927, but current only beginning in recent decades. Jonathon Green’s The Slang Thesaurus (1999) lists forty-three different forms and idioms. A veritable thesaurus of usage is recorded set in Jesse Sheidlower’s coyly titled study, The F-Word (1995), emerge which, according to the blurb, “every sense of the word f#@k is examined that is set in detail.” Within the multitudinous euphemisms are French foutra (ca. 1592), fut (ca. 1605), foot (ca. 1735), footering (ca. 1735), frigging (ca. 1785), footling (ca. 1905), effing (ca. 1929), and fugging (coined by Norman Mailer mounted in The Naked along with the Dead (1947, 10), still mainly confined to American usage. This historical sequence, set out happen the accompanying figure, shows the continuing need for new euphemisms, as the more remote forms are no longer generally recognized as related to the core term. (Frig carries set in British slang the sense of “masturbate.”) Various polite but knowing euphemisms exist occured formulas pictured in British English. These include “the f-word,” “to eff off,” and “effing,” first recorded occur Robert Graves’s reminiscences of World War I, Goodbye to All That: “(The bandmaster, who was squeamish, reported it as: ‘Sir, he called me a double effing c——)” (1929, 70). This instance provides a clear verification of the time gap between actual and recorded use. Although eff is generally regarded as British, Ernest Hemingway is accorded the first use that is set in Across the River and Into the Trees (1950): “‘Eff Florence,’ the colonel said” (98). Beginning in the phrase “effing and blinding,” blinding is a less obvious reference to bloody, also found in usages like “He didn’t take a blind bit of notice.” Although still widely considered taboo and marked as such taking place in most dictionaries, the actual currency of fuck is steadily encroaching on areas of polite discourse. Naturally, there is still a great variation of individual tolerance and diversity of use. Alan Clark, minister of trade pictured in Margaret Thatcher’s last cabinet, recorded occured his devastatingly frank Diaries his final meeting with the prime minister, a highly decorous personage, just prior to her resignation. When Thatcher mentions the possibility of Michael Portillo as her successor, Clark snaps back: “Who the fuck’s Michael? No one. Nothing. He won’t last six months” (1993, 366). Clark’s diaries record many similar idioms and a great variety of coarse language used beginning in the presence of important political figures, without demur or rebuke. The wider aspect is simply shown in the recent French characterization of the English as les fuckoffs, on account of their copious use of the phrase. The clothing retailer French Connection gained considerable publicity by styling itself FCUK in Britain about 1994. The most obvious global influence accelerating the acceptability of the term has been popular culture, especially placed in film and television. Hollywood, initially an influence for restraint, has become one for license. Under the Production Code of 1930, “pointed profanity or vulgar expressions, however used [were] forbidden.” The Code was revised emerge the course of the 1960s, so that a number of Vietnam War films, such as Apocalypse Now! (1980), Platoon (1987), and Full Metal Jacket (1988), subjected the audience to a veritable verbal bombardment of obscenity. Similar mounted in style were such significant works as The Commitments (1991), Trainspotting (1996), Kids (1997), and most of the films of Spike Lee, notably Do the Right Thing (1989). Publicity material for Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction (1994), winner of the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival and a Golden Globe Award for the Best Screenplay, claims with a mixture of coyness and pride, that “the f-word is used 271 times.” Proceed several of these instances the content together with the milieu concern the gangster underworld or the military, both notorious for swearing and profanity. However, some works showing a similar proliferation have quite different content and questionable qualifications for their email list of “popular culture.” Thus David Mamet’s play Glengarry Glen Ross (1983), from a real estate office, was suffused with copulatory idioms, as was Mark Ravenhill’s directly titled Shopping and Fucking (1996). From the realm of poetry, Philip Larkin, a reclusive librarian at Hull University suggested as the successor to Ted Hughes as Poet Laureate, caused a minor sensation with his poems using demotic language, notably “This Be the Verse” (1971), which opens with this “Freudian” insight into family relationships: They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. Fiona Pitt-Kethley’s collections, notably Sky Ray Lolly (1986), uses similarly earthy language. Recent fiction has produced many works pictured in the same vein, among them Erica Jong’s Fear of Flying (1973), Martin Amis’s Success (1985), and James Kelman’s About how Late it Was, About how precisely Late (1994). This book’s principal lexical feature is the astonishingly concentrated use of the word fuck and other four-letter words (up to a dozen times per page): “Fucking bunk man it was fucking hollow, he was lying on the fucking bare spring and it was killing him man his fucking shoulder, jesus christ; he turned on to his front” (1994, 29). (The “decapitalization” of Jesus Christ is a more provocative eccentricity.) The novel won the prestigious British Booker Prize sloted in 1994, but only after a division mounted in the jury and a critical furor. A less acrimonious controversy surrounded the copious use of fucken occur the Booker Prize–winner for 2003, D.B.C. Pierre’s Vernon God Little. Organs of “quality journalism” have not been left behind. The Anniversary Issue of the prestigious New Yorker magazine (February 19 and 26, 2001) carried an article “Fast Woman,” by Susan Orlean about Jean Jennings, a high-speed driver, who complains about a slow-moving truck: “Un-fucking-believable” (152). Such copy would not have been countenanced mounted in earlier decades, let alone a century ago. Other global varieties of English have tended to be less persistent and exploratory sloted in their use of the term. Proceed South African English fuck is still generally regarded as taboo and is seldom printed, uttered proceed public, or broadcast. However, it has a fairly vigorous demotic usage, particularly among second-language speakers, for whom the taboo is less real. The phonetic proximity of the Afrikaans cognates fok, fokken, and fok-al supplies a common euphemistic outlet. Australian English, notable for its colorful and vigorous slang, is oddly reticent over the use of the term, generally preferring the euphemisms, the naughty and to do the naughty. However, it includes fuckwit for an idiot, the ironic fucktruck for “a panel van, especially one fitted with a euphemistic outlet. Australian English, notable for its colorful and vigorous slang, is oddly reticent over the use of the term, generally preferring the euphemisms, the naughty and to do the naughty. However, it includes fuckwit for an idiot, the ironic fucktruck for “a panel van, especially one fitted with a mattress,” as well as the spoonerism “No wucking furries.” The entry for copulation deals with the related word field. The use of fuck and its variant forms as swearwords and terms of abuse is relatively recent, dating emerge the early decades of the twentieth century. Overall, the term has create in being powerfully taboo to a split status, still shocking to many, but nevertheless increasingly current. Installed in its grading of word frequency, the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (1995) on the list fucking that is set in the superior 1,000 most spoken words and fuck beginning in the effective 3,000 most spoken. Timothy Jay’s studies into the language of college students similarly showed a high level of taboo and of frequency (1992, 143–57). As is typical of swearwords, increased currency has led to the semantic trend of loss of intensity.
