Hi and hello! The Irish “aye” angle is a new slant I hadn’t heard. I first heard the phrase in the late sixties, from guys I went to school with who were coming back from Nam. I just figured it was an “In Country” thing, like nepalm and riding PT boats – fast – while blasting Rolling Stones music into the jungle.
Fucki-in’ A, man!
Here’s a link to the SDSAB column in question: What’s the origin of “fuckin’ A”? - The Straight Dope
Kind of disappointing that it’s just a bunch of guesses as to the origin. I could have done that! I wonder if anyone has come up with anything more solid than that.
I always assumed it meant fuckin’ absolutely, but who the fuck knows, really.
It is the first letter of the New York alphabet. the second, of course, is fuckin’ B.
Beautiful!
I was always under the impression that the “A” was for “Assshole”.
I find it funny how expletives invariably have more conjugations and meanings than most of our “accepted” words. I’ve used the term “Fuckin’ A!” to mean “yes”, “fuckin’ asshole”, “no”, an actual anal sphincter, and “I empathize”. No one has ever questioned what I meant.
I’ve mentioned my own “theory” before in similar discussions, and as far as I know it’s pure bullshit. But I will share it so when we learn it’s true, I can claim some ownership of it.
Where I grew up it was almost always “Fuckin’ A Toochie” with variants on the actual spelling of “toochie.”
My theory is that some old Cajun heard some fencing jargon in New Orleans where one fencer said to the other “Vous Connaiz Touche’” meaning roughly “do you acknowledge the touch?”
The Cajun adjusted what he heard and assumed it must mean something on the order of “Damn straight!” or “You bet your ass!” or words to that effect.
Since all the other guesses are as unlikely to be true, I say “Fuckin’ A Toochie, Bubba!” as Gus Grissom did in “The Right Stuff.”
No, a fucking bee is what the Oneida Community termed an orgy, by analogy with a sewing bee, a quilting bee, etc.
In the Navy, it morphed into “Fuckin’-A tweetybird!”
My first night home after my first semester in college, Mom made meatloaf, and my parents and I were eating quietly. Well, I was wolfing mine down, as I was half-starved after living in a dorm with 8 other guys, none of whom were cooks.
Mom asks, “Are you enjoying that?” Not slowing down, I answer “Fuckin’ A!”
My brain caught up with my mouth a moment too late. I looked up to see my parents’ shocked faces. Mom gasped my name, and Dad’s brow creased as the strom clouds gathered. He leaned over the table at me, pointing with his fork. “Listen, you!” he said. “They were saying that since before I got into the Army.* So get it right: it’s ‘Fuckin’ A Tweedle!’”
*Korean conflict-era
I always presumed the “A” was for “Allright!” as “Fucking A” is almost always either synonymous with “Great!”, or less often an assertion of agreement with a statement.
Here’s the pattern in time I’ve always assumed.
I agree.
I AGREE.
I FUCKING agree.
Fucking agree.
Fucking A.
Fuckin’ A.
There was an Ian Dury saying Fucking Ada, which I always assumed had a clue…
The term came from the general suckiness of the Oakland A’s baseball in the 1960’s. The hardhat drunks and the stoners (yes, a lot of hippies and freaks liked baseball because it was a very laid back game and sitting in the sunshine, drinking beer is what longhairs love best.)
The A’s were so bad that the hardhats would yell, “Fucking A’s” which was co-opted by the freaks as a source of agreement “Fuckin’ a man!”
So in a column liberally sprinkled with unadulterated "fuck"s, why the heck is “piss” censored?
Powers &8^]
I never heard it that way (late 60’s) but I Fuckin A agree that this was born in the military.
I first heard it as “Fuckin A Squared Away”, Navy talk for having your shit together.
Nitpick- Cap’n, the A’s hometown was Kansas City for most of the 60s, relocating to Oakland in 1968. The A’s owner, Charlie O. Finley was so hated in KC that when they moved to California Missouri Senator Stuart Symington commented: “Oakland is the luckiest city since Hiroshima."
I didn’t have anything to contribute to the OP, but I’ve always loved that quote.
I imagine my father saying (out of earshot) when I brought home a report card, “I can’t believe he didn’t get one fuckin’ A!”
The “fucking aye” explanation makes most sense to me, for several reasons.
It makes more sense according to the meaning: “aye” means “yes.” The phrase is used to express enthusiastic support of whatever is being responded to. People say “fuck yeah” all the time (frequently preceded, in song, by “America!”).
“Fucking A/aye/whatever” is a positive phrase, used to express enthusiastic support of something. “Fucking asshole” is a negative phrase. If I ask if you’d like a beer, and you respond “fucking asshole,” I do not interpret this to mean yes, you want a beer.
Finally, and IMO most persuasive, it seems silly to suggest that someone who’s willing to say “fucking” would then get coy about saying “asshole,” or anything else. “Aye” isn’t a contraction or elision of anything; it’s just a word that means “yes.”
So there’s my take on it. Fuck yeah.
When I was in grade school, Grace St., now Canty, we always used to
“Fucking A DO”. and that was for just about anything you think of.
I.E. you goin’ to night, she does she have a nice ass, he’s and idiot.
And I’m 81 years old.
PS. Just who the fuck is Canty? 
:eek::):mad::p;):D:(:dubious:
smack:
I had to try all those icons over there to the right. never used them before.