The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #67803 Message #1135512
Posted By: Billy Weeks
13-Mar-04 - 11:24 AM
Thread Name: BS: Why do people type 'F**k'?
Subject: RE: BS: Why do people type 'F**k'?
Amos's etymologist gives 1960 as the earliest use of 'fuck all' meaning 'nothing'. I remember it as being in common use in the 1940s and Partridge's dictionary gives it as 'late C.19-20'. The euphemistic expression 'Sweet Fanny Adam' or SFA ('sweet nothing') has been in use for decades, often by awfully respectable folk with no notion of its hidden meaning.
I know that orally transmitted songs can't be used as dating evidence, but the coarser variants of 'Sam Hall', often include the words:
My name it is Sam Hall And I've only got one ball, But it's better than fuck all...'
This doesn't sound like a late addition to me (or subtraction, in the case of the missing ball)