# Warning: X-rated
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warning-x-rated/2224
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [July 23, 1999, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warning-x-rated/2224 "1999-07-23T02:54:00Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [July 23, 1999, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warning-x-rated/2224/1 "1999-07-23T02:54:00Z")
Where does the term “Motherfucker” come from exactly? Is it just the insult “you fuck your mother”, or is there some specific incident this is linked to? Oedipus perhaps?
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“Man prefers to believe what he prefers to be true” -Albert Einstein
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### Author:  [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [July 23, 1999, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warning-x-rated/2224/2 "1999-07-23T03:12:00Z")
I don’t think the term necessarily refers to you doing things to your own mother, but to mothers in general.
Now I don’t care what you do with your apple pie, but Mom’s a sacred being in most people’s world, and the idea of her being used in such wise is enough to start people thinking the designee might not be such a nice person.
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### Author:  [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [July 23, 1999, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warning-x-rated/2224/3 "1999-07-23T03:37:00Z")
It’s probably just melodius. You might consider why we say far-fucking-out, and fan-fucking-tastic. I would go in to this, but I failed transformational grammar…twice.
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### Author:  [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [July 23, 1999, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warning-x-rated/2224/4 "1999-07-23T03:54:00Z")
South Park has popularized the new insult “unclefucker.” I often hear my coworkers singing the little song that accompanies that insult.
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### Author:  [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [July 23, 1999, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warning-x-rated/2224/5 "1999-07-23T04:01:00Z")
Try “in-crudding-fecable”. Spoonerism is fun!
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### Author:  [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [July 23, 1999, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warning-x-rated/2224/6 "1999-07-23T04:15:00Z")
I have read that there are three basic categories of swearing:
1. Religion
2. Bodily Functions
3. Family
MF covers two of these; you can add G **D** \* to get an equal opportunity obscenity.
Help! I keep listing!
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### Author:  [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [July 23, 1999, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warning-x-rated/2224/7 "1999-07-23T04:35:00Z")
Thanx, slythe. You Spooneristic bass-ackwards
featherduster.
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### Author:  [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [July 23, 1999, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warning-x-rated/2224/8 "1999-07-23T04:36:00Z")
Let’s not forget to pay homage to the Great One here… George Carlin and his 7 dirty words you can’t say on t.v.!
Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, Cock, MotherFucker, and Tits.
Enright3
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### Author:  [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [July 23, 1999, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warning-x-rated/2224/9 "1999-07-23T06:32:00Z")
Wow, can’t I can’t even remember the last time I had cheese-tits for lunch
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Formerly known as Nec3f on the AOL SDMB
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### Author:  [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [July 23, 1999, 7:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warning-x-rated/2224/10 "1999-07-23T07:04:00Z")
You doggammed futhermucker!
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Brian O’Neill
CMC International Records
[www.cmcinternational.com](http://www.cmcinternational.com)
ICQ 35294890
AIM Scrabble1
Yahoo Messenger Brian\_ONeill
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### Author:  [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [July 23, 1999, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warning-x-rated/2224/11 "1999-07-23T11:05:00Z")
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- I was told last night that the British slang term “shag”, (meaning screw -as in perform intercourse-) is derived from “shag carpet”, which traditionally is made of wool, which comes from sheep - thereby connecting (so to speak) “sheep” with “screw”. Or this could all be bullsh- anyway, does anybody know? Does anybody have statistics on bestiality in Britain? - MC
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- “-Hey McCloud, get off of my ewe!”
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### Author:  [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [July 23, 1999, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warning-x-rated/2224/12 "1999-07-23T16:50:00Z")
Alias, you can always try [www.m-w.com](http://www.m-w.com) if you need to know where or what about words.
Thus,
Main Entry: moth·er·fuck·er
Pronunciation: 'm&-[th]&r-"f&-k&r
Function: noun
Date: 1959
usually obscene : one that is formidable, contemptible, or offensive – usually used as a
generalized term of abuse
- moth·er·fuck·ing /-ki[ng]/ adjective, usually obscene
As you can see, it was born in 1959 and has no set origin.
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### Author:  [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [July 24, 1999, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warning-x-rated/2224/13 "1999-07-24T05:19:00Z")
I would also be careful who you say it to. Some people can take any personal insults, but drag their family into it and you have a real problem, especially with latin peoples (italians, spanish, etc) where the family is a big thing.
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### Author:  [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [July 23, 1999, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warning-x-rated/2224/14 "1999-07-23T22:10:00Z")
Let us imagine that you are a gardener and you have, in your backyard, grown a potato the size of a winnebago. Your neighbors are astonished at the size of said potato and one of them deems it “The mother of all potatoes”.
Now let’s say you are a fucker (bear with me). You are not just an ordinary, run-of-the-mill fucker, no. You are an exceptional, magnificent fucker. The aforementioned neighbor might well deem you “The mother of all fuckers”.
Well, time goes by and the colloquialism is contracted, as we are want to do, to, you guessed it: motherfucker.
My 1/50, anyway.
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### Author:  [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [July 23, 1999, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warning-x-rated/2224/15 "1999-07-23T23:30:00Z")
Actually, Carlin’s 7 words were:
shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, and tits.
“Cock” is an acceptable word if one were refering to a male chicken.
## He likewise came up with acceptable uses for “asshole” However, these 7 words had no “out,” there was no legal way to utter these words and have them be contextually acceptable. That was how they (as opposed to some other worthy swears) came out to be the “7 words”
Jason R Remy
“And it could be safely said that at that moment, in the whole of India, no one, absolutely no one, was f^(king a goat.”
– John Irving _A Son of the Circus_ (1994)
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### Author:  [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [July 24, 1999, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warning-x-rated/2224/16 "1999-07-24T13:11:00Z")
Like a lot of other phrases, “Mother F’er” has been reduced to “Mo’ Fo’”. What’s next?
Gary
“disrespect” is NOT a verb, and in the dictionary, “dissin’” is missin’.
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### Author:  [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [July 24, 1999, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warning-x-rated/2224/17 "1999-07-24T13:34:00Z")
If “respect” can be a noun and a verb, why can’t “disrespect”? Where’s Phil when you need him?
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### Author:  [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [July 24, 1999, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warning-x-rated/2224/18 "1999-07-24T13:42:00Z")
I nominate this thread for the “Your mother should have washed your mouth out with soap” award for the month of July.
But yo momma was busy elsewhere, I 'spect.
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### Author:  [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [July 24, 1999, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warning-x-rated/2224/19 "1999-07-24T16:33:00Z")
Toymaker, this you got to see:
[www.mofo.com](http://www.mofo.com)
Its a law office: © 1998 Morrison & Foerster LLP
Funniest web site name you ever saw, eh?
Say, E. Berne in his books understood you couldn’t say those words. So he would mix those letters around in his books and came out with things like ‘mothercuffer’
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### Author:  [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [July 24, 1999, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warning-x-rated/2224/20 "1999-07-24T21:02:00Z")
> [@](#):
>
> If “respect” can be a noun and a verb, why can’t “disrespect”? Where’s Phil when you
> need him?
Glad you asked, Libby!
I quote from page 538 of the _American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language_, Third Edition, published in 1992:
**dis-re-spect** _n_ Lack of respect, esteem or courteous regard. **–disrespect** _tr.v._ **-specte-ed, -spect-ing, -spects** To show a lack of respect for: _disrespected her elders; disrespected the law._
Gary, you’ll note that tr.v. stands for “transitive verb.” You’ll also note that the M-W dictionary dates it to 1614, 385 years ago. Seems you forgot to read the memo.
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