A brief history of the word "fuck"
(lithub.com)38 points by tintinnabula 5 days ago
38 points by tintinnabula 5 days ago
As a French speaker, what is quite surprising is how close the use of "fuck" mirrors the use of "foutre" in French. However, in French, the word has become pretty weak as an expletive. Nobody would be shocked if you say: "je m'en fous", which could be translated either as "I don't give a fuck" or "I don't give a damn". The original sexual meaning of the word is lost on most people now, except when it is used as a noun. For instances, in French movies in the 1930, people would use the verb in a pretty casual way, without any real problems, which means that it had already lost its vulgar side. I guess "fuck" is following the same parallel trend.
In the 1990s, the British musical press (NME etc.) decided it couldn't possibly print "fuck", but "fook" was fine.
So whenever they interviewed Blur (from London) it would be f--- this and f--- that, but Oasis (from Manchester) were given the full fooking treatment.
I'm so confused by this thread. I saw this comment days ago, but here it is, in this thread with a timestamp of "1 hour ago" while the whole thread itself is from "2 hours ago". But if I look at this user's comments, the comment is from three days ago and links back to this thread that, as we've established, claims it is from "2 hours ago".
To add to the fun, if I Google the comment enclosed in quotes, Google says the comment is from two days ago, but if I remove the quote, it says it's from five days ago.
What's happening?
HN has this thing called the second chance pool. Mods give some old submissions a second chance and timestamps are changed to make it look like a new post.
Maybe it was in the second chance pool?
George Carlin was spot on: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnDUqof1KoM
The subject of a well done doc from 2005 (https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0486585/trivia/?item=tr1027526), which included Penn Jilette, Pat Boone, Ron Jeremy, Hunter S Thompson's final appearance, and more.
What's in a name.
"... concerning a man named Roger Fuckebythenavele ... "
"As authorities tried to apprehend him, his name entered the records several times over the course of many months, showing that this was a real name rather than a one-off joke."
Or it could have been a one-off joke that stuck.
This reminds me an interesting netflix doc series, History of Swear words: https://www.netflix.com/title/81305757
hosted by Nicolas Cage
Osho on the word fuck.
If it says 'sign in' in youtube web, just click open app. works there.
I like going to the Online Etymology Dictionary for this kind of thing: https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=fuck
Those swiving historians!
> superficially similar words in other languages—Latin futuere
I was hoping for a facere[1] tie-in. That would be most 'effective'.
If you like cursing in Latin, Catullus has you covered: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catullus_16
perhaps one of the most interesting words of the english language today:
https://archive.org/details/JackWagnerattr.MontyPythontheWor...
What are the HN regulations regarding swear terms?
Also - Forget Underperforming Chronic Klondike-players! Forego Unnatural, Calibrated Kangaroos. Freely Use Cuckold Kinship; Follow Unified Crab Killers.
An interesting article, but I have to point out a more (in my opinion) entertaining take. As the pandemic dragged on and began to seem interminable, Netflix released a somewhat under-the-radar series called "History of Swear Words". Each episode has Nicolas Cage hosting a documentary of a swear word in exactly the over-the-top fashion you'd expect. The word covered by the article is episode 1.
This series gave me some much-needed laughs at the time (YMMV).