fuck

Fuck is among the strongest, most controversial expletives in the modern English language and probably the most well-known vulgarism in the world.

It is unclear when the word was expelled from polite usage, becoming 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". [1]. Other evidence indicates that it may have become vulgar as early as the 16th century in England; thus 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.

Modern status

In the modern English-speaking world, the word is usually considered highly offensive. English-speaking countries often 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 offensiveness, the word is common in popular usage.

Non-English-speaking cultures tend to recognize the word's vulgarity within many cultures. However, because the "foreign language" word has less impact, or because there are no rules requiring it, they generally do not censor it. For example, American rap songs are frequently played on European radio without censoring the word "fuck". In one case, the album 97BT99 by Japanese rock group BUCK-TICK contains an errata sheet which includes correcting a song title from "My Facking Valentine" to "My Fucking Valentine." It is clear that the misspelling was a typo and not censorship since the song appears twice on the album and is spelled correctly on the package one of the two times it appears.

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").

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."
• "Fancy a fuck?"
• "That was a good fuck."
• "I can't believe she's fucking him!"
• "I would fuck her"
• "Can I fuck you?"

Other uses are dysphemistic: The sexual connotation, usually connected to rape or (in the case of "fuck yourself") masturbation, is invoked to incite additional disgust, but has nothing to do with the matter of discussion.

• "Fuck y'all!" (At this point in time, I do not want to interact with any of you)
• "Fuck that" (I understand what you are saying; however, I do not agree)
• "Fuck no" (Definitely no)
• "Oh Fuck" (I have caused irrepairable harm and cannot deny it)
• "Fuck this shit." (I am not going to do this anymore.)
• "Fuck you!" (I don't like you; leave me alone.)
• "He's a dumb fuck." (He's an idiot.)
• "Sorry, I fucked up your computer." (Sorry, I damaged or crashed your computer.)
• "He's pretty fucked up." (He's mentally or emotionally unstable, under the effects of a mood-altering substance, or He has sustained some major injuries)
• "I fucked up on this test." (I did poorly on this test.)
• "Let's fuck around for a couple hours." (Let's waste a couple of hours.)
• "I'm fucked." (I'm in a very unfavorable situation.)
• "Fuck off!" (Go away.)
• "What the fuck!?" (What just happened? Surprise and/or anger)
• "Shut the fuck up!" or "Fuck up!" (Stop Talking - See also "Shut up".)
• "I'm so fucked up right now." (I am extremely drunk or high on drugs or I am generally confused or "messed up"..)
• "Go fuck yourself!" (Get away from me. or Absolutely not.)
• "Fuck it!" (I give up.)
• "I don't give a fuck." or "I don't give a flying fuck." (I don't care. or "Whatever.")
• "I'll fuck you up." (I'll beat you up.)
• "You are a fuck up!" (You are incompetent.)

By itself, fuck is usually used as an exclamation, indicating surprise, pain, fear, disappointment, or anger. In this usage, there is no connection to the sexual meaning of the word implied, and it 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 a 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. For example, the word in-fucking-credible sounds acceptable to the English ear, and is in fairly common use, while *incredi-fucking-ble is very clumsy and never used. 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. Some vacuous uses include:

• "None of your fucking business!"
• "Unbe-fucking-lievable!"
• "I'm so fucking tired."
• "Shut the fuck up!"
• "Fuck you, you fucking fuck."
• "Abso-fuckin-lutely!"
• "In-fucking-credible!"
• "Fan-fucking-tastic!"
• "Fuck-a-doodle-do!"
• "Why don't you go outside and play a game of hide and go fuck yourself." (dismissal)
• "Fucky Fucky"
• "He's a great fucker!" (He's a great fellow, not he's sexually competent.)

In the last 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, use of the word fucker in reference to another person can easily be misinterpreted. Though fuck can serve as a noun, the fucker form is used when 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. "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 even describe themselves as "motherfuckers." The word motherfucker, unlike fuck, has not become more accepted in English usage: it is uncommonly used, and still considered highly offensive.

Because of its profane status and versatility, the word fuck can be used many times in an English sentence. For example,

• "Fuck the fucking fuckers!" ("Forget about those very disliked people.")
• "Fucking fucker's fucking fucked, fuck!" ("It is broken, with additional emphasis on dismay.")

The latter example excellently demonstrates the versatility of the word fuck, as each instance represents a different syntactical usage: an article, a noun, an adverb, an adjective, and an interjection. Another example of this flexibility is the song "Mercyfuck" (1998) by the singer/songwriter Mary Prankster:

I wish I could fuck all my sorrow away

And fuck 'til the dawn of the next fucking day

Fuck the chorus and verse, fuck the pain getting worse

Fuck it all 'til I burn

I wish I could fuck all of you 'til you see

I'm the worst fuck-up in all history

Fuck your image and mine, fuck your limp valentine

Fuck it all 'til I learn

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 fora 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".

Some have claimed that the word fuck is more commonly used among blue collar workers than professionals, and that it is therefore a trademark of the lower social classes. However, this claim is unsupported and largely untrue: college students, predominantly middle- and upper-class, frequently use the word among themselves, but more rarely with professors and authority figures. What is true is that the word is more accepted in some social circles than others—truck drivers at lunch would probably meet no reproach using the word fuck with co-workers, while it would be very hazardous to a corporate executive's career to use it during a professional presentation. Though this same executive might use the word in private, he almost certainly would not in an office environment.

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. See the list of acronyms involving the word fuck for a more extensive list of examples.

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, such as "The History of the word Fuck" among several others. Other comedians who use the word consistently in their routines include Denis Leary, Chris Rock, and Sam Kinison.

Euphemisms

In situations where using or mentioning the word directly may be considered inappropriate, people often bowdlerize it, either referring to it with terms such as the f-word or the f-bomb (and in particular, the phrase "dropping the F-bomb"), or replacing it with feck, flip, fudge, freak, fork, fook, "fop", fink, fizzuck, frick, frickin, fetch, f*ck, f**k, f-u! (or simply eff), fahq, fauck, "fook", "fack" pock, fock, f0ck, fwck, fyck, fukc, fvck, phoque (actually French for seal), fawk, fcuk, frig, yuck (as in yuck foo!) or the "1337 speak" terms phuck, puck, funk, fukk fuk, or f***. (Although one dictionary meaning of frig is fuck, the rarity of its use renders it less offensive.) In software contexts, fsck, fuk, fark and f2k are also used. In the formerly British Caribbean nations it is sometimes spelled fock. Fark is a bowdlerization which originated in the British Commonwealth countries, derived from exaggerated pronunciation in, for example, the Australian accent (but see also fark.com).

In such circumstance, initialisms or acronyms derived from phrases including fuck may be expanded substituting another word beginning with F, such as euphemising "FUBAR" as "Fouled Up Beyond All Recognition" or translating "RTFM" as "Read The Friendly/Fine Manual".

The fashion house French Connection United Kingdom controversially uses its initials, usually in lower case, fcuk, as a trademark symbol. The word appears on some clothing sold by French Connection, including clothes marketed to teenagers.

The previously mentioned fsck usage is derived from the Unix command fsck(8) for "file-system check". It has been noted that this command is particularly appropriate, as it may be an option of last resort.

In the Irish sitcom Father Ted the word fuck was replaced with feck, a common slang word in Ireland that was acceptable to audiences in other countries. Similarly, people sometimes replace fuck with bloody, a British expletive similar in function but relatively inoffensive.

The phrase "fucking hell" has at times been replaced by editors with "felching heck," an ironic attempt at euphemism given the arguably more offensive—but not as widely known—denotation of felching.

Both versions of Battlestar Galactica use the fictitious expletive frak (also spelled frack or fraq) in the same contexts that fuck would be normally expected. Similarly, Farscape uses the term frell, and Babylon 5 uses frag. The various versions of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy often use photon or zark in place of fuck; the 2005 movie features the character Zaphod Beeblebrox saying "zarking-A". The Legion of Superheroes use "sprock" as one of their many substitute swear words.

Secondary meanings

The phrases "Fuck off!" or "Fuck you!" can also be gestured, by giving someone the finger. In The U.K., however, this gesture is considered "Up yours!", and so they use two fingers (in a "V") to gesture "Fuck you!".

As with other swearwords and taboo words, or intensifiers, fuck is often not used in its original, literal meaning. Rather, it is an intensifier expressing nothing but the speaker's strong emotional involvement (often negatively, but not necessarily: e.g. "fucking good" is a rude way of saying "very good"). In the book Practical English Usage, the two meanings of the word are clearly illustrated by juxtaposing the sentences:

What are you doing fucking in my bed?

What are you fucking doing in my bed?

The first sentence means "Why are you copulating in my bed?", while the second merely emphasizes the sentence "What are you doing in my bed?". The second usage is more common than the first. In the former usage, emphasis will more often than not be put on fucking, to convey that it is the literal act of copulating. An acceptable and more common alternative to the latter is:

What the fuck are you doing in my bed?

"Fuck you! " expresses anger, and thus seems to be more related to "I am so angry at you, I am going to rape you to punish you" than to "I would like to lovingly have sexual intercourse with you." It also may be related to "fuck off," which seems to be a reference to masturbation, where it might originally have been a vulgar way of saying "quit bugging me and go back to masturbating or whatever stupid stuff you usually do." It may also express indifference with respect to the well-being of another person or of other people in general, for example reacting to a request, or the imposing of rules, as in "fuck them and their stupid rules."

Surprise or bemusement can be expressed by, "Fuck me!" or "Well, I'll be fucked!" without suggesting an open invitation. Similarly, "Well, fuck me stupid!" expresses even greater surprise. The phrase "What the fuck!" is also used to express surprise, in the same way as "What the hell!" In internet slang this is abbreviated to WTF.

Another use of the word fuck is as a replacement for the word God in profane statements as in "for fuck's sake!" For example "fuck knows," or "who the fuck knows," means something like "I don't know, and neither is anyone ever likely to know". Sometimes, the phrase "Oh my fuck!" is used instead of "Oh my God!"

Meanwhile, fuck can be used as a negation, as in "I know fuck-all," for "I know nothing".

Linguistics

The word is used flexibly in English. It is possible to substitute "fuck" for all nouns, verbs and adjectives in a sentence:

Fuck! The fucking fuck's fucked!

Fuck me! Fuck knows why, but for fuck's sake, the fucking fucker's fucking fucked!

Verb

The word can be used as a verb transitively:

She fucked him.

Or intransitively:

They fucked all night, fucking everywhere!

Or as an impersonal command:

I'm not going down there, fuck that, dude!

I'm not doing that. Fuck outta here! (Forget it!)

Noun

As a noun:

He is a real fuck. (non-specific insult)

She is a good fuck. (specific reference to sexual skill)

We had a really good fuck last night. (as a sexual action)

Interjection

The interjection fuck is frequently used to express shock, discontent and anger in general.

Fuck! A punctured tire!

The variation Fuck me! may also be used to express great shock or surprise, not necessarily in a negative sense.

• Fuck me! They've hacked this computer!
• Fuck me! This is the best movie EVER!

A further common practice in interjections is the use of the word to replace the proper nouns Christ, God or Pete in the phrase for fuck's sake and Christ/God in fuck knows.

Another variation sometimes used is Fuckin' A!, which may either be a positive exclamation ("Fuckin' A! I won the lottery.") or a phrase of agreement or affirmation similar to amen. The term Fuckin' A! itself is a shortening of Fuckin' Awesome!

Present participle

The present participle fucking (or fuckin' ) is commonly used to intensify a verb or noun. As described earlier, it is used more negatively than positively.

My fucking boss made me work all weekend.

He is fuckin' hot.

In addition, the present participle is sometimes inserted in the middle of a word as an intensifier, a process known as expletive infixation. The rules for insertion of the "fucking"-infix are regular: "fucking" may only be inserted in a multisyllabic word between metrical feet (also known as a tmesis). For example:

that was abso-fuckin-lutely cool!

In-fucking-credible

fan-fucking-tastic

It's un-fucking-believable how many edits the wikipedia page on the word fuck undergoes on a daily basis!

congratu-fucking-lations

whoop-dee-fucking-doo

I'm from Tusca-fucking-loosa, Ala-fucking-bama,Viet-Fucking-nam

The infix usage of fucking is rare among English words.

Past participle

The past participle fucked connotes that something is completely useless, destroyed, or messed up; applied to a person, this implies either exhaustion or drunkenness. For example:

The hard drive crashed, so now the database is fucked.

Your engine's fucked because you forgot to change the oil!

Now that the electricity is out, your computer is fucked.

You were completely fucked last night.

(This connotation can also be found as a transitive verb: He totally fucked his engine when he forgot to change the oil.)

Phrasal verbs

"To fuck up" means to ruin, and the related "to be fucked up" generally connotes inebriation (through alcohol or other psychoactives) in the United States. Although "to be fucked up" in the right context refers to physical or emotional injuries/issues in the US, this can be its primary meaning in other English speaking countries.

• I did ten shots in ten minutes, and now I'm totally fucked up!
• The bouncer really fucked up that guy who kept causing trouble.
• My sister's been really fucked up since her fiancé dumped her. (probably refers to emotional distress, but could also refer to intoxication, depending on the context)

Describing something as "to be fucked up" can mean that it is morally or otherwise "wrong".

• She stole my wallet while I was passed out; that's so fucked up!

"To fuck over" connotes betrayal or a generally unfavorable act.

• Yeah, he slept with my girlfriend. I can't believe he fucked me over like that!
• I got fucked over at work today – they promoted my assistant instead of me.

Portmanteau

Prepended to another word, the sound "f" is sometimes used to evoke the entire expletive, with an intensifying sense.

That's fugly (fucking ugly).

I'm fungry (fucking hungry).

You flooser! (fucking loser)

Godfuck! (god-damn-fuck)

He's a fucktard (fucking retard)

Discourse particle

Fuck is sometimes used as a discourse particle or filler, in much the same way um... or like... is used.

Her name is, fuck... What the fuck was her name again?

Etymology

The etymology of fuck has given rise to a great deal of speculation, which should be regarded skeptically. The authoritative Oxford English Dictionary is quite cautious in providing an etymology for this word. In the quotation below, the dictionary's usual abbreviations are spelled out for clarity:

Early modern English fuck, fuk, answering to a Middle English type *fuken (weak verb) [which is] not found; ulterior etymology unknown. Synonymous German ficken cannot be shown to be related.

The first known occurrence, in code because of its unacceptability, is in a poem composed in a mixture of Latin and English sometime 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"; that is, "Fleas, flies, and friars". The line that contains fuck reads "Non sunt in coeli, quia gxddbov xxkxzt pg ifmk." The Latin words "Non sunt in coeli, quia," mean "They [the friars] are not in heaven, since." The code "gxddbov xxkxzt pg ifmk" is easily broken by simply substituting the preceding letter in the alphabet, keeping in mind differences in the alphabet and in spelling between then and now: i was then used for both i and j; v was used for both u and v; and two v's were used for w. This yields "fvccant (a fake Latin form) vvivys of heli." The whole thus reads in translation: "They are not in heaven since they fuck wives of Ely (a town near Cambridge)." From The American Heritage Dictionary, 4th Edition.

As the OED notes, some have attempted to draw a connection to the German word ficken (to fuck, in dialects: to rub, to scratch, and historically to strike).

Other possible connections are to Latin futuere (hence the French foutre, the Italian fottere, the vulgar peninsular Spanish follar and joder, and the Portuguese foder). However, there is considerable doubt and no clear lineage for these derivations. These roots, even if cognate, are not the original Indo-European word for to fuck; that root is likely *h³yebh-, ("h³" is the H3 laryngeal) which is attested in Sanskrit (yabhati) and the Slavic languages (Russian yebat`), among others: compare Greek "oiphô" (verb), and Greek "zephyros" (noun, ref. a Greek belief that the west wind caused pregnancy). However, Wayland Young (who agrees that these words are related) argues that they derive from the Indo-European *bhu- or *bhug-, believed to be the root of "to be", "to grow", and "to build". [Young, 1964]

Spanish follar has a different root; according to Spanish etymologists, the Spanish verb "follar" (attested in the 19th century) derives from "fuelle" (bellows) from Latin "folle(m)" < Indo-European "bhel-"; ancient Spanish verb folgar (attested in the 15th century) derived from Latin "follicare", ultimately from follem/follis too.

A possible etymology is suggested by the fact that the Common Germanic fuk-, by an application of Grimm's law, would have as its most likely Indo-European ancestor *pug-, which appears in Latin and Greek words meaning "fight" and "fist". In early Common 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". Then, fuck 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). A very similar set of Latin words that have not yet been related to these are those for hearth or fire, "focus/focum" (with a short o), fiery, "focilis", Latin and Italian for hearthly/hearthling, "foc[c]ia/focac[c]ia", and fire, "focca", and the Italian for bonfire, "focere". But these words came from New Latin, centuries after Middle Dutch.

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. Or perhaps Latin "futuere" came from the root "fu", Common Indo-European "bhu", meaning "be, become" and originally referred to procreation.

Fake etymologies

There are several urban-legend fake etymologies postulating an acronymic origin for the word. In the most popular version, it is said that the word "fuck" came from Irish law. If a couple committing adultery were "Found Under Carnal Knowledge" they would be penalized, with "FUCK" written on the stocks above them to denote the crime. Variants of this include "For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge", "Felonius Use of Carnal Knowledge", "Fornication Under Carnal Knowledge", and "Forced Unlawful Carnal Knowledge", a label supposedly applied to the crime of rape. In another story, a sign reading "Fornication Under Consent of the King" was supposedly placed on signs above houses in medieval England during times of population control. All these acronyms were never heard before the 1960s, according to the authoritative lexicographical work, The F-Word, and so are backronyms.

Another prominent fake etymology references a medieval battle between the French and the English, in which English archers were taken prisoner. The archers were said to have had their middle fingers cut off, effectively preventing them from being able to "pluck" the bowstring after escaping or being released. The story follows that after seizing the French town where the prisoners were being held and learning of the act, the English archers who hadn't been captured began raising middle fingers to the captured French and uttering the curse, "Pluck you," in remembrance of the act. Over time the phrase is said to have evolved into the modern "Fuck you."

History of usage and censorship

Early usage

The earliest reference appears to be the name "John Le Fucker", which John Ayto's Dictionary of Word Origins dates to 1278. What John did to earn this name is unknown.

Its first known use as a verb meaning to have sexual intercourse is in a poem titled "Flen flyys" some time before 1500. Written half in English and half in Latin, the poem includes the word fuccant, a hybrid of English root with Latin conjugation, disguised in the text by a simple code. It was originally written as gxddbov, and is decrypted by substituting each letter with the letter which precedes it in the alphabet (keep in mind the alphabet that was used at the time).

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.

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 1900, Albert Edward, 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.

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 suggested the replacement of "kill" in old western movies to "fuck," such as "Okay, sheriff, we're gonna fuck ya now. But we're gonna fuck ya slow..."

Censorship

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. For British broadcasting, the next stage was reached in 1976 when the word was pointedly used in a prime-time early evening show, during a live interview with the Sex Pistols.

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 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 would automatically cause the film to be given an R rating. Later rule changes permit three, non-sexual, strictly exclamatory uses of the word in PG-13 movies.

In 1968, The Beatles' classic "White Album" had the word censored in their bizarre track "Revolution 9" in which band member George Harrison exclaims "So I joined the fucking navy and sailed to sea." No audio is present during the offending phrase. 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 line "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 Scarface (1983), Pulp Fiction, Blue Velvet, The Big Lebowski, Shaun of the Dead, South Park: Bigger Longer and Uncut, and Goodfellas are known for its extensive use. The main character's last name of "Focker" is a running joke in the movie Meet the Parents and its sequel Meet the Fockers. 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 an anomaly in that it was rated PG after the 1984 introduction of the PG-13 rating, yet it includes the line, "'Out of order'?! Fuck! Even in the future nothing works!" 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!"

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 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.

Usage in politics

Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau caused a minor scandal when opposition MPs stated he had told them to "fuck off" in the House of Commons in February 1971. Pressed by journalists, Trudeau later unconvincingly stated he may have said (or mouthed) "'fuddle duddle' or something like that"[2], a phrase which then took on a humorous connotation of that event for Canadians.

During the tumultuous 1968 Democratic National Convention, Connecticut Senator Abraham Ribicoff, during a speech in which he nominated the anti-Vietnam War candidate George McGovern, departed from his written text to say, "If George McGovern were president, we wouldn't have these Gestapo tactics in the streets of Chicago." Many conventioneers, having been appalled by the response of the Chicago police to the simultaneously occurring anti-war demonstrations, promptly broke into ecstatic applause. As television cameras focused on an indignant Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley, lip-readers throughout America claimed to have observed him shouting, "Fuck you, you Jew motherfucker." Defenders of the mayor would later claim that he was calling Senator Ribicoff a "faker" or a "fink."

In a widely-publicized June 2004 incident, US Vice President Dick Cheney reportedly told Senator Patrick Leahy to either "fuck off" or "go fuck himself" during an exchange on the floor of the Senate. [3] The Washington Times, in a spat of journalistic prudence, reported that the Vice President "urged Mr. Leahy to perform an anatomical sexual impossibility." [4]

Notable fuck bands

MC5 was supposedly the first band to use fuck in a song. "Kick Out the Jams" opened with the line "Kick out the jams, motherfuckers!", which was seen as radical at the time of its recording in 1968. The song was heavily censored and the album's initial release contained the milder "Kick out the jams, brothers and sisters!"

In 1969 Jefferson Airplane released the politically-charged live album Volunteers. In the song "We Could Be Together," singer Grace Slick sings "Up against the wall, motherfuckers."

The late-seventies punk rock explosion saw the word forced into the musical mainstream. The Sex Pistols song "Bodies" from Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols (1977) described an illegal abortion as a "screaming fucking bloody mess," while The Stranglers won notoriety for their song "Bring on the Nubiles," which contained the chorus "Let me let me, fuck you fuck you." The same year rock veterans Pink Floyd used the line "you fucked up old hag" in their song "Pigs," from the album Animals.

Rage Against the Machine was a band who seemed to take fuck to the limits. Most notably, in the song "Killing in the Name" Zack de la Rocha said fuck 17 times, in the form of "fuck you, I won't do what ya tell me" 16 times and then ending with a "muthafucka." However, Limp Bizkit pushed the limits more: in the song "Hot Dog," the lead singer Fred Durst uttered fuck around 50 times.

The Nine Inch Nails song "Starfuckers, Inc." has a rousing chorus of "Starfuckers! Starfuckers! Starfuckers! Starfuckers Incorporated! Starfuckers!"; their more recent song "Only" features the line "There is no fucking you, there is only me!" three times in each chorus'; "You Know What You Are" includes the line "Don't you fucking know what you are?" three times in the chorus

The Insane Clown Posse is also known for their excessive use of the word, as their song "Fuck the World" demonstrates, in which Violent J says fuck 93 times.

In 2005 the special edition of the Murderdolls album Beyond the Valley of the Murderdolls extended the upper limit to 95 with the song called "I Love to Say Fuck," which features the expletive in almost every line. The Dresden Dolls, in a live version of their notable single "Coin-Operated Boy," in describing an ideal but mechanical lover, sang the line "I can even take him in the bath," as "I can even fuck him in the ass," much to the shock and delight of first-time audiences.

Japanese rock trio Electric Eel Shock have an ironic take on the overuse of the word fuck in music in their song "Don't Say Fuck" which instructs the listener not to say it over 40 times. "The Man Don't Give a Fuck" by the Welsh band Super Furry Animals is similarly prolific in its use of the word.

The Fuck Fucks were a long-lived band from Melbourne, Australia.

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. 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.

In Colorado Springs, tavern owner Leonard Carlo had over 29 signs containing the word fuck, including the slogans "Leonard's II Fucking Much," "No Fucking Children, Animals, Tabs or Checks!", and "No fucking tap or draw beer." Signs on the restroom doors read "Fucking Men" and "Fucking Women." Also, the top of Leonard's bald head was tattooed with the words "Fuck U. Leave Me the FUCK Alone." A state liquor agent removed all 29 signs from Leonard's Bar on August 31, 1999 because he believed the signs violated a state regulation that prohibits profanity in bars.

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.

On June 22, 2004, while participating in the U.S. Senate class photo, Vice President Dick Cheney and Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy from Vermont had a personal exchange that garnered headlines in the United States. After comments by Leahy, Cheney allegedly told him to "...go fuck [him]self", which was later characterized as "a frank exchange of views." In response, Leahy said that Cheney "was just having a bad day." Others have pointed to this incident and the events that led up to it as evidence of a culture of extreme partisanship that has developed in Washington. Senate rules prohibit profanity while the Senate is in session, but Cheney did not violate the rules because the Senate was not in session at the time.

Most United States broadcasters replace fuck (and other so-called four-letter words) on broadcast television and radio with a beep "at times of day when there is a reasonable risk that children may be in the audience," or have the word silenced out, or a reverse of the sound of the word when the word in question is used.

Following the death of Monty Python legend Graham Chapman in 1989, a speech at his memorial was read by fellow Monty Python actor John Cleese, which claims to be the first time someone has said the word fuck in a British memorial service.

U.S. TV: Saturday Night Live

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.

Rocket was not the only SNL performer to say fuck on-the-air. Other performers include Paul Shaffer in the late 1970's and Norm MacDonald in 1997. "Something got caught in my throat," says MacDonald in the book Live from New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live, "and I went, 'What the fuck was that?' If I hadn't brought attention to it, I don't think anybody would have even heard it. I pointed it out, because I couldn't believe I said it."

More recently, popular metal band System of a Down said the word while performing their song "B.Y.O.B." on SNL on May 7, 2005. Near the end of their song, which had been heavily censored, guitarist Daron Malakian yelled "Fuck yeah!"

UK TV: The Tube

The Tube was a Channel 4 music television show similar to MTV, which broadcast in the 1980s. In an incident in 1987 its co-host Jools Holland accidentally swore when he used the phrase "groovy fuckers" in a live trailer for the show. This resulted in national uproar and a campaign by Mary Whitehouse to have the show axed.

UK TV: Father Ted

The Channel 4 television comedy series Father Ted introduced to 90s Britain an Irish swear-word which was almost fuck and not quite a euphemism, prolifically used by the drunken and lecherous priest Father Jack Hackett: feck. This was originally a term meaning "to steal" and is probably derived from the word fetch. This term is becoming a common substitute for fuck in the United Kingdom as a consequence of the popularity of this series, and has been further bowdlerized into feth.

Play: Sex, Fucking and Making Love

The first American play with the word fuck in the title was Sex, Fucking and Making Love. It was produced in New York in fall of 2004 by Genesis Productions Worldwide, LLC as an off-off-Broadway production. However, Mark Ravenhill's play Shopping and Fucking opened in London in 1996 and also played in the U.S.

Movie: Shaun of the Dead

On the DVD version of the film Shaun of the Dead, it is mentioned in the special features that they must provide an alternative dub of any scenes containing obscenities, replacing said obscenities with variations of the words. The DVD contains one of the edited-for-airlines scenes (entitled "Funky Pete"), in which every instance of the word fuck is replaced with funk, and every instance of the word prick is replaced with the term prink. It is also noteable for the fact that it uses the word fuck 77 times in 99 minutes.

Movie: Hoffa

The 1992 movie Hoffa was noted for its strong language, especially the use of the word fuck. The word fuck was used 268 times during the movie.

Cable TV series: Deadwood

"HBO's series Deadwood had a reputation for salty dialogue even before the first episode aired. It was nearly impossible, they said, to keep count of the number of f-words spoken during each program. We took it as a challenge."

• Total fucks in series: 1930
• Cumulative series FPM: 1.48

• Total fucks in Season Two: 1099
• Average fucks per episode: 91.6
• Cumulative Season Two FPM: 1.76

• Total fucks in Season One: 831
• Average fucks per episode: 69.3
• Cumulative Season One FPM: 1.23 [5]

Songs

In April 2004 the controversial R&B song "Fuck It (I Don't Want You Back)" by male singer Eamon became the first song with an obscenity in its title to reach the top 20 of the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. The word fuck was censored both on the packaging and on the radio edit of the song. The single reached #1 on the charts of several countries including the UK and Australia. A reply to the song, titled "F.U.R.B. (Fuck U Right Back)", by female singer Frankee was also very successful and reached #1 in the UK in May 2004 and in Australia in June 2004.

American band Nine Inch Nails' 2000 single, "Starsuckers, Inc." features a lyrical re-work of the album version, "Starfuckers, Inc." intended to give the song a chance of broadcast in the U.S. It was often referred to by radio DJs as "Farstuckers, Inc." (which is "Starfuckers, Inc" with the "st" and "f" sounds transposed).

The track "Fucking in Heaven" on the Fatboy Slim album You've Come a Long Way, Baby repeats fucking a total of 108 times in 3 minutes and 54 seconds.

An Auckland, New Zealand band, The Mint Chicks, released their debut album Fuck The Golden Youth in May 2005. On the album cover, the title was printed as F**k The Golden Youth, however posters with the uncensored title in large letters were put up in several high-volume traffic locations around Auckland.

Internet

In the early commercial days of the Internet, the domain name registrar Network Solutions blocked certain obscene words from being used. There was no such restriction in the UK and a group of fans of Viz comic registered the domain fuck.co.uk. Their website claimed to be promoting the "Fulchester Underwater Canoeing Klubb" (Fulchester being the fictional setting of many of the stories in VIZ). The name now hosts a pornography site.

UK TV: Live 8

On July 2, 2005, BBC broadcast the London Live 8 concert live. During the concert, singer Madonna shouted "Are you fucking ready, London?" and rapper Snoop Dogg used motherfucker repeatedly. U2 frontman Bono replaced the line "Give me what I want and no one gets hurt" from the song "Vertigo" with the words "Give us what we want; give us what we fucking want." 350 people out of the 12 million who watched the event on BBC complained (0.003%). BBC apologized if anyone was offended. [6]

Movie: South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut

The song "Uncle Fucka" used in the movie South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut had Terrance and Phillip singing about each other's sexual intercourse with their respective uncles ("You don't eat or sleep or mow the lawn / You just fuck your uncle all day long!"). Another song from the film, "Blame Canada" was nominated for an Academy Award; though much less profane than "Uncle Fucka," it contained the line "he tells me to fuck myself"

UK radio

The word has appeared uncensored (almost definitely accidentally) on the UK's BBC Radio One (and on countless other commercial channels) as a component part of Mylo's track "Drop the Pressure," which featured the word motherfucker on every single line.

The verb "fuck" in different languages

A direct translation of this word may not be possible into any particular language, as every culture has its own taboos, and (as seen above) "fuck" can be used in many different ways.

• Afrikaans: fok, naai, steek ("fok my", "fok jou", "ek het haar genaai")
• Albanian: qi ("qifsha" when used in sentences)
• Amharic: tebeda
• Arabic: neek
• Armenian: kunel
• Belarusian: ????? (jabac´), ????????? (piardolic´) - to fuck
• Bosnian: jebati (to fuck)
• Bulgarian: еба (eba)
• Burmese: loe (fuck); ma aye loe (motherfucker); nga loe ma ther (i fucked your mother)
• Chinese (Cantonese): diu (屌, but often denoted as the character 小 inside the character 門(). Pronounced like "dew" in English)
• Chinese (Mandarin/Putonghua):
  1. diao (屌) Also refers to penis, esp. in Northern China; means "cool", "awesome" in Taiwan.
  2. cao (肏/操) (肏 pronounced "tsaau" and 操 pronounced "tsou")
• Chinese (Taiwanese) also known as Minnanese: gan, (used more by native speakers of Taiwanese, it occurs in the expression "Gan lin nia!" which means, "Fuck your mother!" or "Gan lin tzo gon!" which means "Fuck your ancestors")
• Catalan: follar, cardar, fotre
• Cebuano: iyot
• Croatian: jebati; fukati (probably borrowed from English); karati (literally, to scold), seviti, prcati
• Czech: píchat (literally "to thrust", used as a slang word for "to copulate"); šukat, šoustat, mrdat (all three vulgar, to have sex [with], to fuck); kurva! (vulgar, literally "bitch", used as an expletive)
• Danish: kneppe, knalde or "bolle". Pule is known but rarely used.
• Dutch: neuken (also, the Dutch verb fokken, meaning to breed animals)
• Esperanto: fiki
• Estonian: nikkuma, nussima, keppima
• Filipino: kantot
• Finnish: vittu (Curseword, "Voi vitun vittu!!"="Fucking fuck!!", literal meaning of "vittu" is "cunt") nussia (verb, to fuck) Haista vittu! (Fuck you!) Literally go smell a cunt
• French: baiser (to have sex with); foutre (dismissive: "Va te faire foutre!" meaning "Go screw yourself!"; "Fous le camp!" meaning "Fuck off!" or "Shove aside!"), nique (As in "nique ta mère!" meaning "fuck your mother!") or simply putain (as in "Putain!" meaning "Fuck!")
• French (Quebec): fourrer (literally, to stuff); the adjective fucké, a borrowing, means broken or out of luck, and is not especially profane. See sacre.
• Galician: foder
• Georgian: მოტყნვა; mot'q'nva (fuck)
• German: ficken (to have sex with, pronounced like fucken, just with a short e instead of the u) ¹
• Greek: gamao, gamo, gamisi; Γαμάω, Γαμώ, Γαμήσι ("g" pronounced softly, as a voiced velar fricative)
• Gujarati: chod ("Ch" as in check & "d" is pronounced softly)
• Hebrew: "lezayen" (transitive), from noun "zayin", which is a slang word for the penis; also "lidfok", which literally means "to knock". "Lech tizdayen" (directed at a male) and "Lechi tizdayni" (directed at a female) are the common usages, meaning "fuck off".
• Hindi: chod (चोद)("Ch" as in check & "d" is pronounced softly) madarchod "Motherfucker" Behenchod "Sisterfucker"
• Hungarian: baszni
• Icelandic: ríða (pronounced "ree-tha" with a soft th-sound, literally: to ride)
• Ido: futuar
• Indonesian: ngentot
• Irish: Feisigh, verb. Feisigh leat, "fuck you".
• Italian: fottere, scopare, trombare, ciulare, chiavare, stantuffare
• Japanese:yaru "to do, to give, to have sex with" くたばれ, kutabare, "To die, to have sex with"
• Kannada: kay-yi
• Klingon:³ Qu'vatlh (pronounced KKHO-vatl), or va. Both are general invectives. The adverbial jay' (intensely) can also be used, as it turns the sentence into an invective.
• Korean: "ssi-bal" (씨발), pronounced like the English words "she ball" but with the a in bal pronounced as the a in Sally, not the o in Johnny
• Latvian: pist
• Latin: futuere
• Lithuanian: pisti, dulkinti, kruÅ¡ti
• Luxemburgish fecken (to fuck)
• Luo: Ng'othruok
• Macedonian: ?? ??? (to have sex with someone)
• Malay: puki (likely an adoption of fuck) or pukimak (likely an adoption of motherfucker) or celaka (bastard) kotek ⁴
• Malayalam: Punn
• Maori: onioni
• Marathi: झव,Zav
• Nepali: chiknu (verb, pronounced chicknu'चिक्नु') [reader's note: the word seems inconsistent with the one written in Nepali]
• Norwegian: knulle, pule
• Persian: گاییدن ga-yee-dan
• Polish: jebać (pronounced yebatch), pierdolić (pronounced pee-erdolitch), kurwa (pronounced koorva, used as an interjection)
• Portuguese: foder (i.e. vai se foder means "go fuck yourself.") (or comer subjectively used, because it means "to eat"; in Northern Portugal pinar ou montar is also used; in Brazil fuder is commonly seen)
• Romanian: a fute (often used in phrases such as "futu-È›i mama mÇŽ-ti", lit. "fuck your grandmother").
• Russian: ебать (somebody), ебаться (each other), also трахать, трахаться.
• Scottish Gaelic: Dàirich ("DAHR-ikh"), "to breed/copulate" (a very crass term). Sgaoil leathar (skeul LE-har) lit. "to stretch leather". Buail craiceann (bwal KRA-kenn) lit. "to strike skin". Faigh muin (FAI mooin (fai as in "pie")), lit. "to receive a back".
• Serbian: јебати (jebati), карати (karati)
• Slovak: jebať, drbať (first being more vulgar than second, to have sex [with], to fuck); kurva! (vulgar, literally "bitch", used as an expletive)
• Spanish: Most of the following words, although considered vulgar in certain contexts, are not usually considered curse words, thus not commonly censored.
  • Argentina: coger (this same verb in Spain and other countries means "to grab"), also "echarse un polvo".
  • Chile: culear
  • Colombia: pichar or tirar (the last one means "to throw" in most other Spanish-speaking countries)
  • Cuba: singar similar to mexican chingar
  • Ecuador: tirar, culear, pegarse un palo, pegarse un polvo (meaning "to take a dust" in most other countries)
  • El Salvador: coger, pisar (meaning "to step on" in most other countries).
  • Mexico: chingar (e.g. "Chinga a tu madre", "Fuck your mother"), joder (e.g. "No me jodas", "Don't fuck with me"), Ponchar (to pinch) (e.g. "Me la ponche", "I fucked her"), also verguear (translatable as "to dick")
  • Peru: cachar, tirar and, less so, culear
  • Spain: joder (usually as an all-purpose expletive, can be accompanied by other expletives) or follar
  • Venezuela: both joder and chingar used
• Swedish: knulla
• Tamil: Oatha which means "Fucker", pundala okka which means "Fuck her", Thai Oli which means Mother fucker, okkala oli which means "Sister fucker"
• Telugu: Dengu
• Thai: เย็ด yet (to fuck), เย็ดแม่ yet mae or แม่ง maeng (fuck your mother) ⁵ [7]
• Turkish: sikmek (=to fuck) (Pronounced "sick-mac"), düzmek, sikiÅŸ, siktir git (=fuck off), orospu çocuÄŸu (=motherfucker), sikilmiÅŸ (=fucked up)
• Urdu: چودنا (verb), chod("Ch" as in check & "d" is pronounced softly)
• Vietnamese: đụ, địt or đéo
  • Example: "Đụ mẹ mày!" or "Đéo má mày!" (insulting words similar to "motherfucker", where 'mẹ' is pronounced meh and 'mày' is pronounced may)
• Welsh: The welsh dont have an actual word for fuck. However, you can use Cnachau bant, Ffwcia oma or Cer i grafu (literaly 'Go and Scratch'), Cnuchu fy fam (Fuck your mother) and Cau Dy wyneb a Ffwcio dy ewyrth! (Shut your fucking face, uncle fucker)
• Yiddish: shtupn (שטופּן) (literally "to stuff")

Notes

Note 1: The word ficken was seemingly not used as an expletive in German until recently. (It was, however, a taboo word, but this due to its literal meaning, and its belonging to vulgar speech.) That today fick dich! is used as a common (though very strong) expletive meaning fuck you! is clearly a borrowing from English. The general all-purpose taboo expletive and correct translation of fuck! remains Scheiße, literally shit, or, increasingly common, fuck used in untranslated verbatim.

Note 2: Ambiguously translated back to English as "to fool around". Many have argued that a verbal translation of "fuck" into Japanese is impossible, but Japanese vulgarity largely comes from speaking in a forceful and explicit manner. Offensive language is communicated through directness, self-importance, emphatics, and curtly abbreviated expressions. When "fuzakeru" is lazily truncated by dropping the "fu" and the verb ending "ru" while adding "na" to mean "not" and "yo" for exclamation, we have zakennayo! which if uttered aggressively, sounds like "Don't fuck with me, asshole!" to the Japanese ear, even though its root literally translates as "don't mess around". It should also be noted that almost all American curse words, including "fuck", are recognizable to the Japanese because of their use in films.

Note 3: Klingon is a fictional language, created by Marc Okrand for the fictional race Klingons, featured in the TV Show Star Trek. More information about Klingon can be found at The KLI.

Note 4: 'Puki' in Malay actually means 'vagina' or 'faraj' in Malay while 'pukimak' means 'your mum's vagina'. The more common word for fuck is 'pantat', as described by the Kamus Dewan (A Malay Language Dictionary). 'Celaka', although is a foul word, has no sexual connection. It is used to express an angry situation. Indonesian language (a dialect of the Malay language) uses the word 'celaka' for accident(more correctly, like car accidents). Another rude phrase is 'tetek mak kau'.

Note 5: Thai has a medical word for sexual intercourse (which translated back means "genitalia touching") and at least two slang versions for it. But even the slang versions wouldn't work as insults. To the amusement of Thais, the name of the German automaker Audi sounds like one of the two slang versions. To confuse matters, Thais have a vegetable whose name sounds like fuck (it irritates some tourists when they hear the name because they think they are being insulted). But the correct pronunciation for this vegetable is "fug" with the "g" like in "guest".

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
• Philip 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

• four-letter word
• euphemism
• motherfucker
• cocksucker
• profanity
• seven dirty words
• sexual slang
• This Be The Verse
• Fucking, Austria
• fuddle duddle
• ratfucking
• Nil by Mouth
• List of acronyms involving the word fuck
• List of films ordered by uses of the word fuck

External links

• An article from The Straight Dope on the etymology of the word
• A thorough and amusing legal brief on the history and constitutionality of "Fuck". All relevant cases are cited.
• Christopher Hitchens on fuck
• American Heritage Dictionary, see "Word History" for an enciphered(!) usage of the word in the ribald sixteenth-century poem, Flen flyys.
• "Cheney Dismisses Critic With Obscenity." Washington Post article on the 2004 Cheney-Leahy incident.
• Re: the Cheney-Leahy incident, slate.com discusses how newspapers decide whether or not to print "fuck."
• "Online Etymology Dictionary." Some Emtomology Research
• "Urban Dictionary." Peer-Reviewed Definitions of Fuck
• History of the "F-Word" A humorous flash video explaining the word "Fuck."
• [8] "English Sentences Without Overt Grammatical Subjects", by Quang Phuc Dong, discusses the syntax of "fuck."

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