Origins of the 'F' word

[DSYoungEsq]

@Cervaise

Another exception: “OK.”

Which is not an acronym.

[samclem]

@Baldwin

Okay, we’ve established that it’s a very old word, and not an acronym. But as far as I know, the modern useage of fucking as a general intensifier, rather than a literal term, is fairly recent. That always bugged me about the cursing on the HBO show “Deadwood”; although contemporary accounts mention the abundant foul language in the town, on the show they elected to go with modern-sounding cursing (basically using fuck in every sentence) rather than 19th century cursing, which probably would have relied more on colorful blasphemies.

I think I may have replied to that criticism about “Deadwood” in a thread about the topic some time ago. Yes, they did use “fucking” as an intensifier in the mid/late-19th century. It’s just that it’s hard to find numerous printed examples. But they exist. It WAS used at that time.

[Wendell_Wagner]

You know, whenever someone brings up “ichthos” being an acronym, I find myself thinking, “What an irrelevant nitpick!” I don’t even think it should be considered an acronym. An acronym is a word that originated by combining the initial letters of several words. “Ichthos” was the use of an existing word as a code by Christians in Rome to refer to Jesus by a single word that used the intial letters of a phrase that applied to Jesus (and simultaneously referred to several mentions of fish in the New Testament). It’s similar to an acronym, but it’s not an acronym. It’s also irrelevant to my point. With rare exceptions, people didn’t do acronyms in English before approximately 1910. Most of those rare exceptions are initialisms.