Great columns. Thought that I would throw out another “fuck” option…
I have always been told that the work fuck, along with the british hand signal that accompanies it originates from the days of the middle ages.
I heard that the English defense was outstanding thanks mainly to the longbow. When the French captured the longbow archers, which was rarely, they would cut off the two “plucking” fingers and send them back to their war leaders. As a result, the French would mock the english by waving their index and middle fingers and yell “pluck you!”. Of course thanks to the accent of the French this was then adopted as “Fuck You!” by the english after wars were over as an insult to them, reminding them of the lost battles and their silly, silly accents.
Cheers
Alban Ford
Wellington
New Zealand
When commenting on Cecil’s columns, we’re encouraged by The Management to include a link to the column you’re discussing: What’s the origin of the “F” word?
Personally, I’m a bit dubious of the etymology you propose. It’s similar to the story about the origins of ‘the finger’, which Cecil discounted in this column: What’s the origin of “the finger”?
Alban the problem with that explanation is… well quite frankly the problem is that it’s made up because it sounds good. There’s no actual basis for it.
As Cecil points out the Germanic version of fuck, fokken etc was already well entrenched by the time the languages diverged, and that’s going back many thousands of years before the invention of the longbow. The words pluck and fuck simply don’t have any commonality that anyone can see beyond rhyming.
The other problem is that with modern French and English accents pluck and fuck simply can’t be confused in the manner you describe. It’s hard to tell just how a French speaker may have pronounced the word over 5000 years ago but there’s no reason to believe the language has changed so much that the ‘pl’ sound would have been substituted for ‘f’.
Now if there was any historical basis for it that would demand more serious attention, but as it stands it’s a ‘Just So’ story.
This derivation for ‘fuck’ sounds wildly improbable to me.
However there is a maybe more realistioc story attached to the same material - it is true it is said the English had an advantage over the French becasue of their skill with the long-bow - the Battle of Agincourt comes to mind - and until recently English people would insult people they didn’t like by waving two fingers (nails facing out), which I’ve heard was originally a taunt relating to this archery prowess. I don’t think you see it so much now - the American style one finger seems more common when digital abuse is required.
Think about it (and Snopes points this out - see the earlier link) - this makes absolutely no sense. You’re a French officer, and you’ve captured some English longbowmen. You’re going to take these highly trained and talented soldiers, cut off two of their fingers, then send them back to their army? Still relatively able-bodied, as it were? Nonsense - you’ll just see them again in the next war. Sure, they might not be able to pluck their bow anymore, but they sure can weild a spear, pike, or sword, or generally help out their armies otherwise. Not a chance.
I’ve also heard that the waving of the two fingers, with the back of the hand towards the wavee (as it were) is obscene because it approximates the shape of a woman’s legs - telling your wavee to “get bent.” Not necessarily because it says “ha! these are my bow plucking fingers!”