In 1650, was there a DIFFERENCE???
Well, the joke ends
I suspect that your “screw em” conjecture matched the officer’s intent, but the joke is based on the literal nature of the sergeant as he responded to the actual order.
Common usage, I’d say all of those are replacements for fuck. I use freakin’ all the time around people who have kids.
Now, you can look in the Oxford all day, but even that will define a word based on its usage…
I certainly hope so. That is what good dictionaries do.
As opposed to finding the origination of “frig,” “freak,” etc. In other words, look to the usage, not the history.
“freak” is now most definitely used as a verb similar to “fuck”. For instance, who remembers “Freak Me” by Silk?
Definitely a case where common useage has shifted in the last few decades. Late 1960’s/early 1970’s meaning of freak wasn’t sexual intercourse, it was , IIRC, much more drug use-related.
Not to be a finger-pointer, but amongst many other groups, Grateful Dead fans ( such as my brother, my cousins, everyone I grew up with except ME ) referred to themselves rather proudly as Freaks. Then, there was the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers. Their exploits were unquestionably drug-use centered, not sexual intercourse-centered.
Not uncommon for a word to shift over the course of several decades, I suppose.
During my teens–this would be in the 1980s–I read a bunch of Hustler and Penthouse magazines. In some of the stories, articles, and no-doubt 100% accurate letters, the words frig and friggin’ were often used to mean rubbing or chaffing and/or masturbation . . . you know, a woman would get excited and, using her hands, start “furiously friggin’” her, um, well, you know . . .
FWIW. “Freaking” is the act of removing tobacco from a Black and Mild cigar, removing the paper interior sheeth, and replacing the tobacco into the wrapper still attached to the mouthpiece. Believe me it very much improves the flavor.
From my use of the word I do not believe it is a derivitave of fuck.