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Wednesday, December 14, 2005
By definition of Cambridge Dictionaries Online, fuck, as a verb, means to have sex with someone. As a noun, it is an act of sex. When you fuck something up, you ruin something. When you fuck about, you are behaving stupidly and doing unimportant things. And 'fuck' is basically an emphatic word to express your anger. "What the fuck is that?!" "Man, she's a fucking bitch." Just now, I did a tiny research on the origins of swear-words. Boy, it yielded so much more information than I have expected. The origin of 'fuck' is still pretty much recondite. There are, however, two richly imaginative explanations for it. One version speculates that this word was born as an acronym from the phrase "Forced Unlawful Carnal Knowledge". Apparently, in colonial times, rape was then termed that way and rapists found guilty were branded F.U.C.K on their foreheads. Another variant of this phrase goes "For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge", in which, an adulterous couple would be punished with F.U.C.K carved on their skin too. The other version suggests that 'fuck' is an acronym of another phrase too. An injunction, "Fornication Under Consent of the King", was purportedly carried out during medieval times, shortly after the Black Death plague, to increase the population. Couples were given special permission to copulate and they hung the sign "F.U.C.K" when they carried out their reproductive obligation. Then, we have a 'mother-fucker' to deal with. Surprisingly, it was created by the tongues of African slaves who were forcefully brought to America back in the past. It was used as an offensive name for slave-owners who raped the slaves' mommas. You didn't expect the word 'mother-fucker' to mean so literally: Mother-fuckers fuck mothers, did you? How fascinating. And you didn't know that the word 'frig' means to masturbate. So all the while, if you've been using the word 'frigging' unawares, perhaps that might provide some insight into some seemingly innocuous swear-words. Even a harmless word like 'crap' does have its colourful history. In Victorian times, there was a plumber supposedly named Thomas Crapper who invented the toliet flush we know today. Most probably Crapper didn't wish for that, but his name became notoriously associated with toliets and their effective flushes. You got it. From Crapper to Crap. Crappers were toliets and crap made excrement which necessitated the existence of toliets. What brilliant replacement for 'shit'. Now, enough crap, I need to go to the toliet. So sorry for the unintended pun. PS If you want to read more of what I have read, go to: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A753527 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuck Posted by |z|r| at |
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kindly. SHOUT. archives credits |
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