BS: Why do people type 'F**k'?

Subject: BS: Why do people type 'f**k'?
From: Ed.
Date: 13 Mar 04 - 01:46 AM

Everybody reading something that includes the word 'f**k' knows that the writer means 'fuck'

Whether or not the word is an appropriate one to use is a different question. Why are some words more acceptable when they include asterisms? The meaning doesn't change at all.

Subject: RE: BS: Why do people type 'F**k'?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Mar 04 - 01:56 AM

It's kind of like no saying "Valdemort" in Harry Potter, eh? Everyone KNOWS what you mean, but not everyone is quite willing to say it?

Subject: RE: BS: Why do people type 'F**k'?
From: greg stephens
Date: 13 Mar 04 - 02:43 AM

People used to say "dear" instead of "devil". And "the friendly ones" instead of the fates, or furies or something(my ancient Greek is a bit shaky. And the membrum virile, instead of your(insert appropriate term). Euphemism is an age old custom. A bit irrational perhaps, but quite sweet and polite.

Subject: RE: BS: Why do people type 'F**k'?
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 13 Mar 04 - 02:56 AM

Well, when someone types "f**k" there's always that one in a zillion chance that they don't mean "fuck". They could mean "fink", "funk", "flak", "fork", or even "folk".

Yeah, I know it's pretty fuckin' unlikely...

Subject: RE: BS: Why do people type 'F**k'?
From: Rustic Rebel
Date: 13 Mar 04 - 03:11 AM

FUCK- Fornication Under the Consent of the King. Ask Khandu.

Subject: RE: BS: Why do people type 'F**k'?
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Mar 04 - 03:24 AM

The main reason for writing f**k is that the bulletin board you are using has installed a profanity filter.

RR's definition is of course total rubbish. From Webster:
Etymology: akin to Dutch fokken to breed (cattle), Swedish dialect fokka to copulate

Subject: RE: BS: Why do people type 'F**k'?
From: Mr Happy
Date: 13 Mar 04 - 03:24 AM

asterisms?

Subject: RE: BS: Why do people type 'F**k'?
From: Rustic Rebel
Date: 13 Mar 04 - 03:38 AM

Guest, what does that mean, akin to Dutch foreskin to breed? I don't get it.

Subject: RE: BS: Why do people type 'F**k'?
From: ced2
Date: 13 Mar 04 - 04:31 AM

A new-labour variation on f**k is s*****ism

Subject: RE: BS: Why do people type 'F**k'?
From: GUEST,Van
Date: 13 Mar 04 - 04:55 AM

Who gives a t***s

Subject: RE: BS: Why do people type 'F**k'?
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 13 Mar 04 - 05:41 AM

I'd agree with the possibility of filters.

In general, I also think:

1) People exist who find that sociably acceptable but would find the word itself spelled out offensive. I don't understand them but it may give reason to type the other way.

2) I think there are more than a few who like to be rude, show they can be crude, be one of the lad's etc. but not say so in explicit terms. This provides a mechanism to allow it...

Jon

PS one of my greatest claims to fame in my Hotpoint working days involved the F word. It was about my last day and I'd already resigned because of workloads, just seing time out... I was asked to investigate something like £1000 stock loss (big bolts - perhaps ones that held the motor) while being dragged off to organise a line trial (because material not to drawing had come in and we needed to use it). I wrote the stock off writing something like "Too busy being fucked around by line trials to investigate" on the SCN. Needless to say, I was reported, apologies were given, etc.

Subject: RE: BS: Why do people type 'F**k'?
From: greg stephens
Date: 13 Mar 04 - 06:16 AM

I am interested that the Dutch and Swedes apparently invented this pleasurable activity, because those countries' reputation for a certain relaxed attitude to this sort of thing lasts to this day.

Subject: RE: BS: Why do people type 'F**k'?
From: matai
Date: 13 Mar 04 - 06:47 AM

Because they think FOLK is a swearword.
(;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Why do people type 'F**k'?
From: Jeri
Date: 13 Mar 04 - 08:03 AM

GUEST, 03:24 AM, it's the bulleten boards, but it's the ISPs of people who read, too. People using computers at work, at libraries, at schools, may be blocked from reading an entire site because of profanity. I'm not saying I think it's right, just that it is.

Ed, I like 'asterism'.

Subject: RE: BS: Why do people type 'F**k'?
From: mack/misophist
Date: 13 Mar 04 - 08:35 AM

The F word partakes more of rape than love making. It's derived from an Indo-European root meaning 'to pierce with a spear' and it's modern English cousins are feud, fight foe, and frigate (the warship, variety).

Subject: RE: BS: Why do people type 'F**k'?
From: Amos
Date: 13 Mar 04 - 10:26 AM

A don't know if that IE root is attested or not. Here's what the American Heritage says about it:

ETYMOLOGY:
Middle English, attested in pseudo-Latin fuccant, (they) fuck, deciphered from gxddbov.

WORD HISTORY:
The obscenity fuck is a very old word and has been considered shocking from the first, though it is seen in print much more often now than in the past. Its first known occurrence, in code because of its unacceptability, is in a poem composed in a mixture of Latin and English sometime before 1500. The poem, which satirizes the Carmelite friars of Cambridge, England, takes its title, "Flen flyys," from the first words of its opening line, "Flen, flyys, and freris," that is, "fleas, flies, and friars." The line that contains fuck reads "Non sunt in coeli, quia gxddbov xxkxzt pg ifmk." The Latin words "Non sunt in coeli, quia," mean "they [the friars] are not in heaven, since." The code "gxddbov xxkxzt pg ifmk" is easily broken by simply substituting the preceding letter in the alphabet, keeping in mind differences in the alphabet and in spelling between then and now: i was then used for both i and j; v was used for both u and v; and vv was used for w. This yields "fvccant [a fake Latin form] vvivys of heli." The whole thus reads in translation: "They are not in heaven because they fuck wives of Ely [a town near Cambridge]."   

Seems like msisconduct by religous groups is not very new, eh?

A

Subject: RE: BS: Why do people type 'F**k'?
From: Amos
Date: 13 Mar 04 - 10:33 AM

Another interesting historical essay from an on-line amateur etymologist:

The earliest examples of the word otherwise are from Scottish, which suggests a Scandinavian origin, perhaps from a word akin to Norw. dial. fukka "copulate," or Swedish dial. focka "copulate, strike, push," and fock "penis." Another theory traces it to M.E. fkye, fike "move restlessly, fidget," which also meant "dally, flirt," and probably is from a general Low Ger. word, cf. M.Du. fokken, Ger. ficken "fuck," earlier "make quick movements to and fro, flick," still earlier "itch, scratch;" the vulgar sense attested from 16c. This would parallel in sense the usual M.E. slang term for "have sexual intercourse," swive, from O.E. swifan "to move lightly over, sweep" (related to swift). Chronology and phonology rule out Shipley's attempt to derive it from M.E. firk "to press hard, beat." As a noun, it dates from 1680. French foutre and Italian fottere look like the Eng. word but are unrelated, derived rather from L. futuere, which is perhaps from PIE base *bhau(t)- "knock, strike off," extended via a figurative use "from the sexual application of violent action" [Shipley; cf. the sexual slang use of bang, etc.]. Popular and Internet derivations from acronyms (and the "pluck yew" fable) are merely ingenious trifling. The O.E. word was hæman, from ham "dwelling, home," with a sense of "take home, co-habit." Fuck was outlawed in print in England (by the Obscene Publications Act, 1857) and the U.S. (by the Comstock Act, 1873). The word may have been shunned in print, but it continued in conversation, especially among soldiers during WWI.
"It became so common that an effective way for the soldier to express this emotion was to omit this word. Thus if a sergeant said, 'Get your ----ing rifles!' it was understood as a matter of routine. But if he said 'Get your rifles!' there was an immediate implication of urgency and danger." [John Brophy, "Songs and Slang of the British Soldier: 1914-1918," pub. 1930]
The legal barriers broke down in the 20th century, with the "Ulysses" decision (U.S., 1933) and "Lady Chatterley's Lover" (U.S., 1959; U.K., 1960). Johnson excluded the word, and fuck wasn't in a single English language dictionary from 1795 to 1965. "The Penguin Dictionary" broke the taboo in the latter year. Houghton Mifflin followed, in 1969, with "The American Heritage Dictionary," but it also published a "Clean Green" edition without the word, to assure itself access to the lucrative public high school market. The abbreviation F (or eff) probably began as euphemistic, but by 1943 it was being used as a cuss word, too. In 1948, the publishers of "The Naked and the Dead" persuaded Norman Mailer to use the euphemism fug instead. When Mailer later was introduced to Dorothy Parker, she greeted him with, "So you're the man who can't spell 'fuck' " [The quip sometimes is attributed to Tallulah Bankhead]. Hemingway used muck in "For whom the Bell Tolls," 1940. The major breakthrough in publication was James Jones' "From Here to Eternity" (1950), with 50 fucks (down from 258 in the original manuscript). Egyptian legal agreements from the 23rd Dynasty (749-21 B.C.E.) frequently include the phrase, "If you do not obey this decree, may a donkey copulate with you!" [Reinhold Aman, "Maledicta," Summer 1977]. Intensive form mother-fucker suggested from 1928; motherfucking is from 1933. Fuck-all "nothing" first recorded 1960. fuck up (v.) "to ruin, spoil, destroy" first attested c.1916. A widespread group of Slavic words (cf. Rus. blud, Pol. blad) can mean both "fornicate" and "make a mistake." Flying fuck originally meant "have sex on horseback" and is first attested c.1800 in broadside ballad "New Feats of Horsemanship."

Subject: RE: BS: Why do people type 'F**k'?
From: greg stephens
Date: 13 Mar 04 - 10:36 AM

That Indo-European root seems a bit fanciful stuff, even by the normal standards of etymology(always a bit of a guess-work science). Given the very late arrival of the word(Amos says 1500) in documented form in English, I think we need some more detail to connect these various f-words up. Mack/Misophist may well be right, but let's have some more facts.

Subject: RE: BS: Why do people type 'F**k'?
From: greg stephens
Date: 13 Mar 04 - 10:37 AM

Incidentally, if the first appearance of the word was in code, where and when do we find the first clear use of the word?

Subject: RE: BS: Why do people type 'F**k'?
From: Peace
Date: 13 Mar 04 - 10:38 AM

I type f##k because if I type "phoc" no one knows what I mean.

ph as in phone
o as in wonder
c as in chic

Subject: RE: BS: Why do people type 'F**k'?
From: Amos
Date: 13 Mar 04 - 10:48 AM

Argo Phuquerselvz, a banker from Edinboro.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Why do people type 'F**k'?
From: Billy Weeks
Date: 13 Mar 04 - 11:24 AM

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)

Subject: RE: BS: Why do people type 'F**k'?
From: Bill D
Date: 13 Mar 04 - 11:36 AM

people type it with ** because everyone's sense of what is appropriate differs. If they think it might offend, some use self censorship...others refuse to BE censored....and still others like offending. Personally, I 'limit' use to situations where it is obviously THE word that is needed..(often in a joke where the word use is crucial)

see one of my favorite jokes


famous bumper sticker from Paul Krassner's Realist magazine in the 60s
F**K CENSORSHIP
it caused constenation among the censors for awhile...it became quite a collectors item.

I first saw the word in print in 1959 in a ragged copy of "Tropic of Cancer" which had to be checked out of the vault in the library of the Washington Univ. (St. Louis). It was the 1934 edition from the Obelisk Press of Paris. A few months later, "Lady Chatterly's Lover" was piled high in bookstore windows.

Subject: RE: BS: Why do people type 'F**k'?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Mar 04 - 11:45 AM

A friend of mine avoids the obscenity filters in the email by typing "phucking."

Subject: RE: BS: Why do people type 'F**k'?
From: Bill D
Date: 13 Mar 04 - 11:47 AM

oh yes..I thought I remembered....there was an earlier thread on the very same subject...with another on my favorite jokes.

Subject: RE: BS: Why do people type 'F**k'?
From: Bill D
Date: 13 Mar 04 - 12:05 PM

oh...and I used to get big grins with a T-shirt I made that said, in big, sparkling letters.

Uncontrite Modal Folker


which makes good use of the language in a relevant way which only offends those who work overtime BEING offended.

Subject: RE: BS: Why do people type 'F**k'?
From: Mark Clark
Date: 13 Mar 04 - 12:37 PM

But then if, in the heat of anger, you invite someone to “take an aeronautical intercourse on a horizontally mobile toroid-shaped pastry,” you aren't really talking about an equine activity.

It always amuses me that people won't say fuck or fucked in common speech but they will say someone was screwed, shafted or hosed, each of which carries all the same meanings.

Now you often hear otherwise polite and PC folks, even children, saying that someone or something sucks. Evidently they are completely unaware of the complete expression from which this is drawn and never think about what it might be that is being sucked.

      - Mark

Subject: RE: BS: Why do people type 'F**k'?
From: Jeri
Date: 13 Mar 04 - 01:10 PM

Brucie, I'll bet you're glad it's not spelled 'f&&k'!

Subject: RE: BS: Why do people type 'F**k'?
From: Peace
Date: 13 Mar 04 - 01:29 PM

lmaorotf

Good one, jeri.

lol

Subject: RE: BS: Why do people type 'F**k'?
From: Amos
Date: 13 Mar 04 - 01:47 PM

We once had this ancient Aberdeen Scot as Chief Engineer who had a direct explanation for anything that was wrong --

"Ach, they wann' knoo wa's wrong with the hoigh pressure piston?? I'll tell'em wa's wroong wid it!! It's FOOKT, is what. It's jes' FOOKT!!"

No one could ever get a more detailed answer out of him. But he was a damn good steam engineer!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Why do people type 'F**k'?
From: *Laura*
Date: 13 Mar 04 - 01:54 PM

I wouldn't bet on kids not knowing what is being sucked! :-p

Subject: RE: BS: Why do people type 'F**k'?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Mar 04 - 05:06 PM

How about **ck for a change?

Subject: RE: BS: Why do people type 'F**k'?
From: Peace
Date: 13 Mar 04 - 05:09 PM

Duck? I don't get it.

Subject: RE: BS: Why do people type 'F**k'?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 13 Mar 04 - 06:09 PM

The real question is, why do people type W*ll**m Sh*tn*r?

Subject: RE: BS: Why do people type 'F**k'?
From: Ed.
Date: 13 Mar 04 - 06:37 PM

A google search suggests that they don't...

Subject: RE: BS: Why do people type 'F**k'?
From: Peace
Date: 13 Mar 04 - 06:44 PM

My gawd. 4.2 BILLION sites, and they never heard of W*ll**m Sh*tn*r. What's the world comin' to?

Subject: RE: BS: Why do people type 'F**k'?
From: Bill D
Date: 13 Mar 04 - 08:57 PM

on the other hand they DO type this

(I made a bet with myself...I won)

Subject: RE: BS: Why do people type 'F**k'?
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 13 Mar 04 - 10:09 PM

re "fuck all"
Certainly predates 1960---Used widely in WWII, and likely considerably earlier. "...Bless 'em All - Wellingtons

Worry me, worry me
Wellingtons don't worry me.
Oil-chewing bastards with flaps on their wings,
Buggered-up pistons and buggered-up rings,
The bomb-load is so fucking small
Four-fifths of five-eighths of fuck-all,
There'll be such a commotion when we're over the ocean
So cheer up my lads, fuck 'em all.

Note: The RAF Wellington bomber (two engines, 4500 pound bomb
load) was nicknamed Wimpy. It was slow, messy and fuel-hungry,
but it was all the Brits had in the early stages of the war.

From: Songs from the Front & Rear, Hopkins

Subject: RE: BS: Why do people type 'F**k'?
From: Rustic Rebel
Date: 14 Mar 04 - 01:10 AM

Good one Bill D. William Shitner on the google search and who was the one to spell it that way? None other than Little Hawk himself on the Mother of all BS. Gotta love it.

Subject: RE: BS: Why do people type 'F**k'?
From: JennyO
Date: 14 Mar 04 - 02:31 AM

When the Olympics were on in Sydney in 2000, there were some anti-Olympics sentiments around because of the hype, so there was a t shirt, but not even part of the word was used on it. It just depicted a hand with one finger raised in typical "up yours" position and the words "The Olympics".

Subject: RE: BS: Why do people type 'F**k'?
From: open mike
Date: 14 Mar 04 - 04:38 AM

the "word" is also found in these Acronyms...
SNAFU
FUBAR
which i think may have originated froom military expressions..

Subject: RE: BS: Why do people type 'F**k'?
From: open mike
Date: 14 Mar 04 - 05:01 AM

why do people type G*D?

Subject: RE: BS: Why do people type 'F**k'?
From: Amos
Date: 14 Mar 04 - 05:58 AM

Certain elements in the Orthodox Jewish tradition maintain that the names of God are never to be aid, or typed out, as a way of maintianing reverence or something. Go figger. It has always struck me as strange when people got revved up about words instead of realities.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Why do people type 'F**k'?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 14 Mar 04 - 12:14 PM

Words aren't "just words." They are the most powerful symbols we have. Maybe they aren't the reality they represent - but in many ways, they are the only way we can experience many aspects of reality. If they are our experience of a reality, and they not, in many ways, the reality itself?

Therefore, if we have strong feelings about the sacredness (or lack of sacredness) of a reality, isn't it appropriate to give special treatment to the words that represent that reality?

I don't like euphemisms, but yet it makes me cringe to use words like fuck and cunt. They represent a cheapened, demeaning view of making love, which is something I think of as sacred. So, yeah, I think that f**k and c**t may be appropriate replacements. They're a bit too euphemistic for me, so I just avoid the words altogether most of the time.

Same with the name G*d or YHWH. Many Bibles print "Yahweh" as Lord out of that view of the power of words. The concept of God has a vast and powerful meaning for many people, and it certainly is right for them to treat God's name with awe and respect if that's how they feel.

-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: BS: Why do people type 'F**k'?
From: Amos
Date: 14 Mar 04 - 01:00 PM

Joe:

I would argue that it is bodies, not words, which are the most powerful symbols we have. They are SO powerful that poeple commonly believe they are identical to them. This also happens with words but only in the most downtrodden of cases! :>)

And I don't believe that words are the key to experiencing aspects of reality; quite the contrary, they tend to obstruct experience and substitute mental constructs.   For example, consider all the shallow, self-serving interpretations people have loaded on to the word "God" contrasted with the depth and compassion that is found in the real experience. Likewise other stellar symbols like "love" and "sex", and thousands of others which provide skimpy skeltal cartoons for experiences which are rich and deep in the original.

I don't like using words like fuck or cunt either, in most contexts, but mostly it is because they have been used so widely as ways of expressing foul attitudes. There is nothing inherently offputting about the morphemes or the phonemes involved. Using them sounds like an invocation of crass stupidity because of their cultural associations.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Why do people type 'F**k'?
From: Peace
Date: 14 Mar 04 - 02:57 PM

There is a big difference between saying "Fuck off" with a smile on your face and a twinkle in your eye and saying it with a look of anger and disregard. Words--particularly in print--can be loaded and easily misunderstood. I don't think I would upset a friend like Little Hawk by saying, "Fuck off; you gotta be kiddin'!" when William Shatner doesn't receive a best actor award at the Oscars. The context implies a sense of 'we're on the same side regarding this egregious error by the Academy.' So, it's not the word necessarily, but it definitely IS the contextual frame in which it's set.

Subject: RE: BS: Why do people type 'F**k'?
From: open mike
Date: 14 Mar 04 - 04:17 PM

oh yes, I remember that song L*VE is just a four letter word.
and what about s*x?

Subject: RE: BS: Why do people type 'F**k'?
From: Peace
Date: 14 Mar 04 - 04:28 PM

Great Dylan song. I disliked Baez's rendition.

Subject: RE: BS: Why do people type 'F**k'?
From: Bill D
Date: 14 Mar 04 - 04:31 PM

Amos...I gotta lean towards Joe on this one. I can't wrap my head around 'body' as a symbol, whereas words, whether written or spoken, have served as the way humans have formulated their relationship to existence ever since they have BEEN human. That's why asterisks, or the lack of them, can cause such consternation.

I guess we probably differ on what it might mean to be 'identical' to our bodies, hmmm?

Subject: RE: BS: Why do people type 'F**k'?
From: Peace
Date: 14 Mar 04 - 04:51 PM

open mike: s*x is just a three letter word.