'F' and 'F' Bomb Continued

The euphemisms are numerous from the stated F word to Eff or Effing and one source says Effing should be in the dictionary. I won’t even go through that listing.

Courtesy: The Escapist

(MOLALLA, Ore.) - I recently wrote an article about the F bomb. I got into a discussion with our editor about the etymology or root of the well know F word. I had read about it in Time Magazine about 15 years ago which said it was based on the Dutch word FICKEN which meant thrust. Wikipedia said it was a German word. This required etymological research – so back to my computer.

I looked up the F word and found 1000 entries and 11,000,000 hits. That’s a lot of people to be interested in any four letter word. I also checked profanities and really got a snootful.

“Profanity is a word, expression, gesture or other social behavior which is socially constructed or interpreted as insulting, rude, vulgar, desecrating or showing disrespect”. Profane from latin means Outside the Temple (church, that is not belonging to the inside of the church). (WOW)

It started as blasphemy, sacrilege, saying the Lord or Gods name in vain are considered sinful. However, the Bible writes of “men who eat their own dung and drink their own urine (citation?).” It seems like DAMN or GOD DAMN may have been an original imprecation. How sex and euphemisms for various genitalia got into this is a mystery.

According to a computer search at answers.com/topic/f**k, which had 26 pages on the subject, states that the first written or literary reference to the F word was about 1500 at Cambridge University and town about the University Friars who would not go to Heaven because they were having sex with local wives.

The Oxford English Dictionary states it comes from German words meaning striking (thrust), rubbing or having sex. An Anglo-Saxon charter dated AD 772 grants land near Hastings and Fuccerham which may be a local hamlet or village with a well known human male or stud male animal.

Other references indicate early Dutch origin which being on the border of Germany makes some sense. Many Western European countries use similar spellings and sounding words. In France, maybe only Paris, is a similar sounding word. The word zigzag means drunk but zigzig means sex with expression of a pregnant woman. “She should have zagged when she zigged”.

The 26 pages in answers.com… is an interesting and fun read and indicates the global universality of the word and also the universality of its use in a bewildering number of contexts and forms.

He also gives an extensive list of political bloopers or bleepers.

Actors and the movie industry have their own share of bloopers. I don’t think that they could run Hollywood without the F word.

The euphemisms are numerous from the stated F word to Eff or Effing and one source says Effing should be in the dictionary. I won’t even go through that listing.

The answers.com even has a list of 47 references, numerous books and European language equivalents.

IT IS ENTERTAINING

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