From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Fuck is an
English word that is generally considered
profane which, in its most literal meaning, refers to the act of
sexual intercourse. However, by extension it may be used to negatively characterize anything that can be dismissed, disdained,
defiled, or
destroyed.
"Fuck" can be used as a
verb,
adverb,
adjective, command,
interjection,
noun, and can
logically be used as virtually any word in a sentence (e.g., "Fuck the fucking fuckers"). Moreover, it is one of the few words in the English language which could be applied as an
infix (e.g., "Am I sexy? Absofuckinglutely!"; "Bullfuckingshit!"). It has various metaphorical meanings. The verb "to be fucked" can mean "to be cheated" (e.g., "I got fucked by a scam artist"), or alternatively, to be sexually penetrated. As a noun "a fuck" or "a fucker" may describe a contemptible person. "A fuck" may mean an act of copulation. The word can be used as an interjection, and its
participle 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, "fuck you", and
fuck with. In less explicit usages (but still regarded as vulgar),
fuck or
fuck with 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. If something is very abnormal or annoying "this is fucked up" may be said.
Offensiveness
The word's use is considered obscene in social contexts, 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. 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.
The
Canadian Press now considers the word to be commonplace and has added usage advice to the
Canadian Press Caps and Spelling guide.
[1]
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.
[2]
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 (here, replacing each letter by the next letter in alphabetical order, as the English alphabet was then) 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".
[3] 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.) The term,
vvivys of heli can also be translated
women of hell. (In the
Middle English of this poem, the term,
wife still was used generically for
woman. The word
heli is a construction of the English hel(l) and the Latin
genitive case (
i).)
John le Fucker
A man's name,
John le Fucker, is said to be reported from AD 1278, but the report is doubtful: an
email discussion
on
Linguist List says:
This name has been exhaustively argued over ... The "John le Fucker" reference first appears in
Carl Buck's 1949
Indo-European dictionary. Buck does not supply a citation as to where he found the name. No one has subsequently found the manuscript in which it is alleged to have appeared. If the citation is genuine and not an error, it is most likely a spelling variant of "fulcher", meaning
soldier.
[4]
Anglo-Saxon
An
Anglo-Saxon charter[5][6] granted by
Offa, king of
Mercia, dated AD 772, granting land at
Bexhill, Sussex to a bishop, includes this text in a mixture of
Anglo-Saxon language and
Latin:
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 (
hām) 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, or something unrelated.
[citation needed]
Older etymology
Via Germanic
The word 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).
[2] 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".
[2] 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.
[citation needed]
Yet another possible etymology is from the
Old High German word
pfluog, meaning "to plow, as in a field". 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 (erect-penised) men carrying a plow.
The original
Indo-European root for
to copulate is likely to be *
h3yebh– or *
h3eybh–, which is attested in
Sanskrit यभति (
yabhati),
Russian ебать (
yebat'),
Polish jebać, and
Serbian jebati, among others: compare the Greek verb
οἴφω (
oíphō) = "I have sex with", and the Greek noun
Ζέφυρος (Zéphyros) (which references a Greek belief that the west wind
Zephyrus caused pregnancy).
Via Latin or Greek
- Other possible connections are to Latin fūtuere (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.[citation needed] From fūtuere 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 *fūtus, with possible meanings including "act of (pro)creating".
- A derivation from Latin facere = "to do", "to make" has been suggested.[citation needed]
- Greek phyō (φυω) has various meanings, including (of a man) "to beget", or (of a woman), "to give birth to".[7] Its perfect pephyka (πεφυκα) can be likened to "fuck" and its equivalents in other Germanic languages.[7]
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 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. 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; however, it has been demonstrated to be an urban legend.
[8]
The word "fuck" did not come from any of the following:
- "File Under Carnal Knowledge"
- "Fornication Under the Christian King"
- "Fornication Under the Command of the King"
- "Fornication Under the Consent of the King"
- "Fornication Under Carnal/Cardinal Knowledge"
- "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:
- Fottere: 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
swīfan, 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.
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,
[9] 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.
[citation needed]
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). "Absofuckinglutely" 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 example of this is in
The Crystal Method's song "Name of the Game." 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 of 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?," or "
STFU" for "shut the fuck up," 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). Abbreviated versions of the word tend not to be considered as offensive. Despite the proclaimed vulgarity of the word, several comedians rely on
fuck for comedic routines.
George Carlin created several literary works based upon the word. Other comedians who use or used the word consistently in their routines include
Denis Leary,
Lewis Black,
Andrew Dice Clay,
Chris Rock,
Richard Pryor,
Eddie Murphy, 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:
(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,
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 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.
[10] The book offers a blunt portrayal of the main character's reaction to the existence of the word, and all that it means.
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.
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." [11][12]
- 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!"[13] Daley would later claim that he was shouting "you fink, you" and calling Ribicoff a "faker".[14] On the first night of this same convention, which was President Johnson's birthday, a huge crowd of thousands of yippies, hippies and anti Vietnam war protesters was famously filmed while simultaneously roaring "Fuck you, Lyndon Johnson!"
- 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.[15]
- 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.[16]
- 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.[17]
- 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."[18]
- In June 2004, during a heated exchange on the U.S. Senate floor about Halliburton's role in the reconstruction of Iraq, Vice President Dick Cheney told Democratic senator Patrick Leahy, "Go fuck yourself". Coincidentally, Cheney's outburst occurred on the same day that the Defense of Decency Act was passed in the Senate.[19]
- 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."[20] 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.[21]
- In 2007, U.S. Senator John Cornyn objected to John McCain's perceived intrusion upon a Senate meeting on immigration, saying, "Wait a second here. I've been sitting in here for all of these negotiations and you just parachute in here on the last day. You're out of line." McCain, known for his short temper,[22] replied "Fuck you! I know more about this than anyone else in the room."[23][24]
- In April 2007, New Zealand Education Minister Steve Maharey said "fuck you" to a fellow MP during parliamentary question time.[25] He apologized shortly afterwards.
- In December 2008, recorded telephone conversations revealed Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich trying to "sell" an appointment to the Senate seat that Barack Obama resigned after being elected President. In the phone conversation, Blagojevich said in reference to his power to appoint a new Senator, "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". When speaking of the Obama administration's request that Valerie Jarrett be appointed as Obama's replacement, Blagojevich complained, "They're not willing to give me anything except appreciation. Fuck them." Blagojevich also said Tribune Company ownership should be told to "fire those fuckers" in reference to Chicago Tribune editors critical of him.[26]
- In December 4, 2008, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva caused a stir in the press after declaring, in a metaphor about the economic crisis of 2008-2009, that he was going to act as a doctor that gives medicine to a sick patient rather than one that tells him to "sifu". "Sifu" is a portmanteau of the phrase "se fuder", which literally means "fuck oneself" in Portuguese. Lula's speech was clearly aimed at neoliberal politics, once he defended more attention from the state (doctor) in the economy (sick patient). The Office of Communication of the Presidency of the Republic was accused of censoring the word in the transcript of the speech. Instead of "sifu", it contained the text "(inaudible word)".[27][28] The word was eventually included in the transcript.
- In December 2009 a member of the Irish parliament Dáil Éireann, Deputy Paul Gogarty caused a media furore when he verbally attacked a fellow Deputy, Emmet Stagg with the outburst "With all due respect, in the most unparliamentary language, fuck you Deputy Stagg! Fuck you!". Although Deputy Gogarty immediately apologised, videos and video remixes of his eruption became a temporary internet sensation.[29]
- On March 23, 2010, U.S. vice president Joe Biden whispered into President Barack Obama's ear, "This is a big fucking deal" when referring to the U.S. health care reform bill. His words were picked up by microphones and video.[30]
- On May 3, 2010, Canadian senator Nancy Ruth advised representatives of women's groups to "shut the fuck up on" access to abortion, in the run-up to the 36th G8 summit.[31]
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), and the title character says it in the cartoon
Bosko's Picture Show (1933). 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 uses of the word in
PG-13 movies[citation needed], 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 1970, 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
Fuck,
Good Will Hunting,
Casino,
The Last Detail,
Menace II Society,
The Big Lebowski,
The Departed,
Scarface (
1983),
Pulp Fiction,
Blue Velvet,
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. 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. The movie
Student Bodies inserted a scene in the middle of the film to explain to audiences that movies with an R rating are more popular than those carrying a PG rating, which the movie could easily have had. He ends his address with, " ... the producers of this motion picture have asked me to take this opportunity to say 'Fuck you'.", at which time the MPAA R-rating banner appeared.
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 three 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 second is
Big (
1988) which has the character of Billy asking Tom Hanks' character, "Who the fuck do you think you are?" The third is
Beetlejuice (
1988) which has the character Betelgeuse kick over a fake tree and scream, "nice fucking model!"
[32] In the PG-13 rated movie
Soapdish (1991),
Sally Field played an aging
soap opera actress who, appalled that her costume included a turban, 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." Similarly, the TV broadcast edit of
Snakes on a Plane has
Samuel L. Jackson saying "I have had it with these monkey-fighting snakes on this Monday-to-Friday plane", emending two occurrences of
motherfucking.
[33] In the film
The Big Lebowski,
John Goodman's character repeatedly yells, "This is what happens when you fuck a stranger in the ass" while trashing a car. It was infamously censored on television as "This is what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps."
[34] His character also repeatedly says to
Steve Buscemi's character, "Shut the fuck up, Donny," or "Donny, shut the fuck up." In the television version,
fuck is censored with
hell.
Many
stand-up comedians who perform for adult audiences make liberal use of the word
fuck. While
George Carlin's use of the word was 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.
[35] 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.
In 2009, the European Union's
OHIM trade marks agency disallowed a German brewery to market a beer called "Fucking Hell". They sued, and on 26 March 2010 got permission to market the beer. They claim the beer is actually named after the Austrian village
Fucking and the German term for light beer, hell.
[36]
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 (referring to Justices
Warren E. Burger,
William J. Brennan, Jr.,
Byron White,
Thurgood Marshall,
Harry Blackmun,
Lewis F. Powell, Jr.,
William Rehnquist, and
John Paul Stevens) 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.
[37]
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.
[where?][38]
Holy fuck
"
Holy fuck" is a widely used example of 'liturgical profanity' used interjectionally to express anger, contempt, disgust, or amazement. Usually vulgar.
[39] Noted by academics
[40][41] and used in literature
[42][43][44], 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.
[dubious – discuss] [45]
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
干 or
Traditional Chinese character
幹 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 (金山 = "Gold Mountain") by
Kingsoft.
[46]
Common alternatives
Main article:
Minced oathIn 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
chec
king utility.
[47] 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, but its use in unrelated media is growing.
[48] Similarly, Dr.
Elliot Reid (played by
Sarah Chalke) has frequently used the substitute "frick" on the TV show
Scrubs.
