# Is 'freakin' or 'frigging' a bad word?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-freakin-or-frigging-a-bad-word/78169
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [August 26, 2001, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-freakin-or-frigging-a-bad-word/78169 "2001-08-26T05:41:16Z")
**Posts on this page:** 15
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@yosemite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yosemite)
#### Post date: [August 26, 2001, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-freakin-or-frigging-a-bad-word/78169/1 "2001-08-26T05:41:16Z")
I have started to use _freakin’_ or _frigging_ (instead of _f_\*\*_ing_) which is obviously inappropriate in some company.
My sister (not exactly a prude, and someone who curses up a blue streak when the mood strikes) says that she always thought that freakin’ and frigging were also pretty inappropriate words. She said she’d never use them around old ladies, church people, etc. Is she right? I never have thought this. I have never gotten a horrified look from the above mentioned types of people when I say these words.
So, what is everyone else’s opinion? Will old ladies swoon if I say “freaking” in front of them?
---
### Author:  [@Muad\_Dib](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muad_Dib)
#### Post date: [August 26, 2001, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-freakin-or-frigging-a-bad-word/78169/2 "2001-08-26T05:46:21Z")
They’re perfectly crumulent words.
---
### Author:  [@Slacker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slacker)
#### Post date: [August 26, 2001, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-freakin-or-frigging-a-bad-word/78169/3 "2001-08-26T05:57:07Z")
Offense is in the ear of the beholder. I probably wouldn’t say “freaking” or “sucks” or similar words around the geriatrics at church, but would say it without hesitation around the high schoolers there.
---
### Author:  [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)
#### Post date: [August 26, 2001, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-freakin-or-frigging-a-bad-word/78169/4 "2001-08-26T06:45:43Z")
Well, perhaps the British Dopers can correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe “frigging” at least, is a sexual vulgarism in British English. Either that or the Sex Pistols song “Frigging in the Rigging” is a lot tamer than I thought 😉 .
- Tamerlane
---
### Author:  [@Tansu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tansu)
#### Post date: [August 26, 2001, 11:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-freakin-or-frigging-a-bad-word/78169/5 "2001-08-26T11:08:34Z")
Frigging means ‘rubbing for sexual pleasure’. Yes, it’s less rude than ‘fucking’, but I wouldn’t use it in polite company.
Here’s Yet Another British Slang Dictionary [http://uk.geocities.com/agirlcalledben/words.html](http://uk.geocities.com/agirlcalledben/words.html)
---
### Author:  [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)
#### Post date: [August 26, 2001, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-freakin-or-frigging-a-bad-word/78169/6 "2001-08-26T12:48:54Z")
This is more of an IMHO.
bibliophage
moderator, GQ
---
### Author:  [@lawoot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lawoot)
#### Post date: [August 26, 2001, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-freakin-or-frigging-a-bad-word/78169/7 "2001-08-26T15:18:52Z")
At the in-patient unit I work at, we don’t let the kids use "Freakin’ " or "Friggin’ ". We know what they mean, and they know it too. Kids who spout off alot of ‘f\*\*ks’ when they first arrive on the unit are the ones who tend to use these terms the most. And they get just as mad when we call them on using them, too, I might add.
---
### Author:  [@nonsequitur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nonsequitur)
#### Post date: [August 26, 2001, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-freakin-or-frigging-a-bad-word/78169/8 "2001-08-26T17:07:24Z")
Yeah, it all depends on who you’re talking to. If I say crap or gosh in front of my mom-in-law, you would have thought that I had slapped her face from her reaction.
---
### Author:  [@okielady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/okielady)
#### Post date: [August 26, 2001, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-freakin-or-frigging-a-bad-word/78169/9 "2001-08-26T18:39:43Z")
I don’t let my son use the words. To me they’re implying the other word. For a youngster to use the words, it seems _almost_ as disrespectful as using the actual word implied. But…admittedly, I’ve used them myself (all 3 of them) and I don’t often hesitate to use them around my friends. However, I wouldn’t use them around, say, my mother, who takes high offense to the use of any of the F-words, or around my kids. I **try** to teach by example. Sometimes I’m just not very good at it. :o
---
### Author:  [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)
#### Post date: [August 26, 2001, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-freakin-or-frigging-a-bad-word/78169/10 "2001-08-26T21:14:14Z")
_Frigging_, as noted, has long meant sexual rubbing or masturbation. It was generally an “underground” term until James Jones dragged it out into society in _The Thin Red Line_ so that his G.I.s could cuss, but he could still get the book published in the U.S. (He also did use “fuck,” but more sparingly, so as to stay below the blue-pencil radar.)
_Freaking_ certainly could be a minced oath for “fucking,” but its origins go back more to the drug culture of the late 60s and it thus has a better chance to claim a patronymy of “psyched out” or “high” and can pretend, at least, to be non-sexual.
---
### Author:  [@clayton\_e](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clayton_e)
#### Post date: [August 27, 2001, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-freakin-or-frigging-a-bad-word/78169/11 "2001-08-27T00:21:24Z")
In my opinion, no.
---
### Author:  [@yosemite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yosemite)
#### Post date: [August 27, 2001, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-freakin-or-frigging-a-bad-word/78169/12 "2001-08-27T02:04:18Z")
Hmm. Well, this has been very helpful! Thanks!
It looks like “freakin’” could almost “pass” as not too rude, depending on where I say it. (If I say “crap” in certain company, “freakin” is probably fine too.) But “frigging” sounds a little dicey, since some people might be aware of the British meaning.
---
### Author:  [@JonScribe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JonScribe)
#### Post date: [August 27, 2001, 6:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-freakin-or-frigging-a-bad-word/78169/13 "2001-08-27T06:33:54Z")
Fuck, no.
---
### Author:  [@SmackFu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmackFu)
#### Post date: [August 27, 2001, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-freakin-or-frigging-a-bad-word/78169/14 "2001-08-27T13:44:10Z")
“Ow, my freaking ears!”
---
### Author:  [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)
#### Post date: [August 27, 2001, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-freakin-or-frigging-a-bad-word/78169/15 "2001-08-27T14:31:19Z")
See, now, this is something I’ve seen elsewhere: second-hand profanity. At my son’s school, they can’t say “heck” because everybody knows it’s just another word for hell.