You’ve probably said it today — I know I have. Most of you will have used it as a noun, verb, adjective, adverb, interjection, and conjunction by the end of the week. Some of you will use it to describe pain, others pleasure, and others still to add emphasis to a given sentence. By the end of this article, you might even whisper it to yourself, just to hear it out loud. The word, of course, is the one mom told you never to use: fuck.
As it turns out, the story behind the F-bomb is more interesting than you might expect.
A brief fucking history
Unlike most of its vulgar counterparts — shit, turd, and arse, to name a few — fuck doesn’t have its roots in Old English. Some have suggested that the word originated as an acronym for Fornication Under the King or For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge (the second having been borrowed by Van Halen for the title of a 1991 album), although there’s little evidence to support these claims.
It’s much more likely that fuck developed out of several Germanic terms for stroking, rubbing, and having sex. Its first recorded usage is in a coded poem from 1475, wherein the poet accused Carmelite friars of breaking their celibacy vows. In 1503, William Dunbar used the variation fukkit in his poem “Brash of Wowing.” Its next appearance was in a 1598 Italian-English dictionary, where it was paired with other vulgar terms of the time, such as jape, sard, and occupy.
Fuck has been a choice word of artists, politicians, and musicians for centuries.
Though the word continued to be used to describe sexual intercourse in certain circles, it didn’t find its way into our cultural lexicon until the late 19th century, where it gained popularity among working class Britons during the industrial revolution. Its status as an insult and an expletive qualified it as a swear word, and one that was not to be repeated aloud in Victorian Era Britain.
Some fucking grammar
Though fuck still literally refers to sexual intercourse, it’s more commonly used today in the figurative sense: it can be an action verb (I really give a fuck) or a passive verb (I really don’t give a fuck), a transitive verb (she fucked him) or an intransitive one (he was fucked by her). It can be an intensifier or a simple expletive. It can also take the place of almost every word in a sentence, as exemplified by Paul Fussell in his book Wartime: “Fuck, the fucking fucker’s fucked.”
Fuck also finds its way into several acronyms, most likely because of its vulgarity. Some common examples are WTF (what the fuck), FML (fuck my life), STFU (shut the fuck up), and FUBAR (fucked up beyond all recognition) — the latter gaining popularity due to its use by soldiers during World War II.
Fuck can even be used as a tmesis, where it’s inserted into the middle a previously existing word: the terms in-fucking-credible and abso-fucking-lutely sound perfectly normal to us, even though few other words in the English language can be used this way. Ultimately, fuck can be taken out of almost any sentence it’s in without affecting its syntactical meaning, making it as elusive as it is omnipresent.
Who the fuck uses it?
Fuck has been a choice word of artists, politicians, and musicians for centuries. Shakespeare famously alluded to the word in Henry V, when Pistol threatens to firk a soldier. D.H. Lawrence’s novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover attracted controversy for its repeated use of the word, as did authors such as James Joyce, Henry Miller, and J.D. Salinger. Comedians tend to use fuck more than any other performers, most notably Chris Rock, Richard Pryor, and George Carlin.
The word is also common in popular music — especially hip hop — although it’s usually censored on radio. TV shows also censor the term, and the US Supreme Court can fine stations up to $325,000 for an accidental “fuck.” Politicians seem to love the term, and we have recorded evidence to prove that Lyndon B. Johnson, John Kerry, Joe Biden, and our very own Pierre Trudeau had a particular affinity for it. (Fuddle duddle? Not a chance.)
Few words in our ever-expanding language are as flexible or versatile.
As for The Peak, we follow the Canadian Press style guide, which included fuck in its list of terms for the first time in 2005, due to its increasingly tolerated usage in other print media and in the public sphere. The Canadian Press encourages journalists not to censor the word, although it advises newspapers only to print the word if it is essential to the story. In that case, I think I’m safe.
In fucking conclusion
Fuck has had a long and storied history, and it’s arguably more popular today than ever. Unlike its more offensive cousin, which I am hesitant to print here (it rhymes with punt), fuck is used liberally in almost all English-speaking cultures, classes, and creeds. It’s not hard to see why: few words in our ever-expanding language are as flexible or versatile. It can describe annoyance, sadness, anger, elation, confusion, lust, boredom, panic, or disgust — sometimes all at once.
So if anyone tells you to watch your language: fuck ‘em!
