On a project I’m working on, I have people in the 1870s using the “f bomb” occasionally…you know, “She’s such a fucking idiot!” type of thing. My editor questions whether “fuck” was in the common parlance during that era. Right now, all I’ve got is, “Well, that’s how they talk on Deadwood!” It’s not a powerful argument. I tried to do a google search, but oddly, all I found were people asking similiar questions on other MBs and told to “google” it. Heh.
So what do you know about fucking? 
The American Heritage dictionary has this to say:
The Master speaks
This book will probably help.
Try this
Speak you of country matters?
If you mean where is it set–Utah territory and the tiny cow town of Los Angeles around 1870.
We did a thread here about Deadwood and the “slanguage” they used.
The words “fuck/fucking” etc, were certainly in use in Deadwood at that time. Just how common they were is forever gonna be a matter of conjecture. Since it was rather taboo in everyday use, print cites are rather scarce, although they exist both in the US and England.
I’d try to let the words fit the character. The average person certainly didn’t say this in public. But it probably wasn’t uncommon in certain circles.
I’ve got Jesse Sheidlower’s book, and can answer questions that you might have.
I think the words fit the characters. I’m not writing about high society ladies in New York after all, and I only use the word when the character is overwhelmed by extreme circumstances.
Thanks for the links everybody. The editor said it’s up to me, whether or not to keep it, and based on what I’ve seen in the various links, I think I will. wordorigins.com said that it was a major taboo to publish “fuck” between 1795 and 1960, which makes me think that it wouldn’t be taboo (or a big deal) if nobody was using it.
Though if anybody else has any concrete evidence either way, I’d sure love it! Don’t want to be responsible for spreading ignorance, after all…
Hamlet: “Lady, shall I lie in your lap?”
Ophelia: “No, my lord.”
Hamlet: “I mean, my head in your lap.”
Ophelia: “Ay, my lord.”
Hamlet: “Did you think I meant country matters?”
(A very dirty joke from the early 1600’s. :))
snort I should have recognized that too. Boy, is my face red…
I don’t “fuck” or “fucking” were in use as exclamations at that point. (I have an ongoing beef with Deadwood over this. In fact, I was thinking of opening a thread on this.)
“Fuck” is a very old word, it’s true, but as a descriptor of sexual activity, not as an exclamation.
For a cite, I give my dad, born in 1920 and a true artist in the medium of cursing. I believe him to be a window into the world of cursing of yore. “Fuck” was a part of his vocabulary to be sure, but NOT as an exclamation. The usages “fuck off,” “fucking idiot” and just plain “Fuck!” were not known to him. He would occasionally use “fuck” in its original sense as a verb. The only way it ever became an exclamation was in the very rarely used “mother fucker.” (Separate words.)
Only rarely did the F-boomb in any form pass my father’s lips, and he was a prolific old-school cusser. Much more common were such classics as “sonofabitch,” “bastard,” “god damn,” “cocksucker,” “piece of shit,” “shit-ass,” “piss-ant.” In your constructions, he would have used “goddamned idiot” or “goddamn idiot” instead of “fucking idiot.”
Is there any evidence that “fucking idiot” was in use before, say, 1965?
I’ll second that. I don’t think there are any examples of “fucking” used as a meaningless intensifier before the 20th century, e.g., “I don’t fucking care!” If someone said “fucking” in 1870, they meant copulation.
One more use of the f-bomb by my dear old dad was “he can go fuck himself.” But again, it was being used not as an intensifier or an exclamation, but in its original sense as a synonym for “copulate”.
And I should correct my last post. My dad did not use “mother fucker” as an exclamation, but rather as a descriptor, as in “I wouldn’t give that mother fucker the time of day.” (Though he would have been more likely to use “son of a bitch” in that sentence. “Mother fucker” was an extreme to which he resorted only when very angry.)
I think samclem’s got a valid point.
According to the OED (2nd edition), “fucking” as participial adjective and adverb, with the intent to intensify, was included in a multi-volume catalog of slang from the late 19th century,
– Tammi Terrell
Oh, and for one-word exclamations, my father’s choice was “Shit!” or “Damn!”
Part of the problem may be that to modern ears, those exclamations don’t sound as shocking as they might’ve to someone hearing them in 1870. (Or in the early part of the 20th century, when my dad picked them up.)
Here’s an 1857 cite:
and 1882,
As an exclamation, from 1864
The problem is that the word was so not polite, that you had to use dashes, asterisks, and euphemisms. But people used the words in a manner that only appeared in print around the beginning of the 20th century. WWI opened the floodgates.
Uh, well, I’d say I used it about 50/50. Sometimes it does actually refer to the act of copulation, but other times, it is an exclamation. I don’t know why it’s bothering me so much–probably nobody cares but me and my editor, and the editor said it was up to me.
Well, based on what I’ve seen, I’m going to take out about 50% of the uses and replace it with hell, shit, etc. That’ll at least make it closer to historically accurate, as we know it, and also make the incidents of using “fuck” more powerful…after all, if it’s sprinkled around the story, it’ll lose whatever power/meaning it has anyway.
Thanks all, again. This is exactly why I love the SDMB so much.