# What's the origin of the "F" word? (1984) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [October 4, 2013, 10:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-origin-of-the-f-word-1984/670336 "2013-10-04T10:21:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Powers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Powers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Powers)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2013, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-origin-of-the-f-word-1984/670336/21 "2013-10-14T00:40:54Z")
> [@JamesCurran](#): > > (A passable English translation of “Figst du” would be “(Hey) You, Go Fuck (something)”) Or “Fuck, you”, to use the traditional word order. Powers &8^] ---
**Author:** ![installLSC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/54ee81/32.png) [@installLSC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/installLSC)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2013, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-origin-of-the-f-word-1984/670336/22 "2013-10-27T07:02:32Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > My Partridge is even more bowdlerized than Cecil’s. It says of “f**k" that it is one of the two SE (standard English) words that cannot appear in print anywhere in the English speaking world. (The other is "c**t”.) My how times have changed! Uh how does “fuck” and “cunt” count as standard English, now or then? Neither could be reasonably used in scientific literature, government documents, or corporate papers. ---
**Author:** ![vontsira](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/51bf81/32.png) [@vontsira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vontsira)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2013, 10:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-origin-of-the-f-word-1984/670336/23 "2013-10-27T10:33:37Z")
> [@phatpherret](#): > > Twenty-nine years ago you said, “Richard Spears, author of the splendid ‘Slang and Euphemism’, says the word may be a disguise of the French foutre” Perhaps so; the now-quaint synonym “futter” is said to have been invented by none other than Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton from foutre. He certainly was familiar with both the act and the language. [samclem and Exapno Mapcase go on to discuss “futter” and its derivation.] I have just noticed this thread – find interest in this element of it, in a “curiosities re fiction” rather than a strictly linguistic context. Am thinking of some of Harry Turtledove’s fantasy novels – those set, one way or another, “previous to modern times” (especially his “The Darkness” novel series). Where these novels plentifully feature war and military action, they include much dialogue in “rough soldier talk”. In such dialogue, Turtledove – maybe trying for an olden-times “feel” – makes much use of “futter”, substituting it for the modern familiar four-letter f-word. I’d imagined that “futter” was a word coined by Turtledove; but it seems that it’s Richard Burton (the explorer / author, as opposed to the actor) whom we have to thank for it. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2013, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-origin-of-the-f-word-1984/670336/24 "2013-10-27T13:36:10Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > My Partridge is even more bowdlerized than Cecil’s. It says of “f**k" that it is one of the two SE (standard English) words that cannot appear in print anywhere in the English speaking world. (The other is "c**t”.) My how times have changed! > [@installLSC](#): > > Uh how does “fuck” and “cunt” count as standard English, now or then? Neither could be reasonably used in scientific literature, government documents, or corporate papers. Partridge wasn’t a dictionary writer. He defined “Standard English” as words that are used in speech but are so vulgar they are almost never written. And, considering when he wrote his books, he was correct. The OED and almost any other dictionary calls those words “coarse slang” or vulgar, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2013, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-origin-of-the-f-word-1984/670336/25 "2013-10-27T15:10:28Z")
Encarta, which is my most recent dictionary, uses “taboo” with one sense of cunt labeled as “taboo insult”. American Heritage lists them as “obscene”. But installLSC’s restriction of “scientific literature, government documents, or corporate papers” is just silly. It is common to see all the taboo words in fiction today, and dictionaries are stuffed with words taken from fiction. Journalism, essay writing, and analyses of common speech would all have fuck and cunt and many other four-letter words. Go to a bookstore and start pulling random volumes off the shelves and see how many in how many different subjects contain these words. Context is everything. But context is even more everything when it comes to words. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2013, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-origin-of-the-f-word-1984/670336/26 "2013-10-27T15:22:54Z")
It’s pretty common for linguistics literature to use the word in example sentences, and that’s a kind of scientific literature: [http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1608](http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1608) ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2013, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-origin-of-the-f-word-1984/670336/27 "2013-10-27T15:27:20Z")
PSXer writes: \> I read somewhere that fuck was originally an acronym for “Fraternization Under \> Consent of the King” There’s a simple rule here. Any claim that a common word comes a acronym formed before about 1910 is almost certainly wrong. They didn’t do acronyms back then. ---
**Author:** ![qazwart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/5fc32e/32.png) [@qazwart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/qazwart)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2013, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-origin-of-the-f-word-1984/670336/28 "2013-10-27T19:22:25Z")
> [@installLSC](#): > > Uh how does “fuck” and “cunt” count as standard English, now or then? Neither could be reasonably used in scientific literature, government documents, or corporate papers. Your right. Corporate papers have to use the euphemism _servicing our customers_. As in _As a service to our customers, we are changing our terms of service_. ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2013, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-origin-of-the-f-word-1984/670336/29 "2013-10-27T20:19:28Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > PSXer writes: > > \> I read somewhere that fuck was originally an acronym for “Fraternization Under > \> Consent of the King” > > There’s a simple rule here. Any claim that a common word comes a acronym formed before about 1910 is almost certainly wrong. They didn’t do acronyms back then. Indeed, proper acronyms begin nearer to 1940—except in Hebrew, where they’ve been around since the middle ages or so. Chaucer uses “cunt” freely, although he spells it “queynte”. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2013, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-origin-of-the-f-word-1984/670336/30 "2013-10-27T22:55:45Z")
Shakespeare too, although he wrote around it: > [@](#): > > Malvolio: “…these be her very Cs, her U’s and [N] her T’s and thus makes she her great P’s.” > [@](#): > > ``` > Hamlet: Lady, shall I lie in your lap? > Ophelia: No, my lord. > Hamlet: I mean, my head upon your lap? > Ophelia: Ay, my lord. > Hamlet: Do you think I meant country matters? > > ``` ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2013, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-origin-of-the-f-word-1984/670336/31 "2013-10-27T23:04:23Z")
To be explicit, acronyms began to be used occasionally in World War I, but the real glut of them was during World War II. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2013, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-origin-of-the-f-word-1984/670336/32 "2013-10-27T23:59:40Z")
> [@Simon\_Templar\_1](#): > > You left out my all-time favorite euphemism. “Getting your pole greased” It’s from the novel “Paper Moon” by Joe David Brown. They left that out of the movie for some reason. Along with 90% of the book. Hey, books are long, movies are short. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-origin-of-the-f-word-1984/670336.md?page=1)