I am hanging out with some Irish guys, and one said that he “was going to be absolutely fucked,” and then claimed that he said “fooked” and that is a different word, and not obscene. The others backed him up, but I think that was just a show of solidarity.
Also, they are claiming that “feck” is very common word, and appropriate for use in general company. Any truth to that one?
Nonsense. It’s the same word, just with a dialectal variation. Similar myths spread in England when Father Ted was popular, claiming that ‘feck’ was a way around the (non-existent) ‘censor’. It’s true that the offensiveness and general suitability of even the moderated vocabulary can vary, but this depends on class, location, and everything else.
Feck is a little more polite, and usually means the same as fuck, although I understand it is not quite a synonym.
There was a Daily Show sketch about a Supreme Court justice named Rufus Pfukke, from which we get the term, “getting pfukked.” But that’s just another play on the word “fuck.”
Feck is it’s own word with a seperate meaning of it’s own, as thelurkinghorror pointed out. Feckless is the opposite of feck, and it’s in the dictionary.