The F-Word

The guys in my college often used the f-word. You did, if you wanted to be 'cool'. Like the 'dudes' on the popular 'English' music channels (before most of these went 'fultu desi' Hindi and began giving more valued attention to nationalistic terms like 'a-bey ghonchu'). But, in any event, the dreaded F-word never came out sounding convincingly offensive from these guys, you know? More like wet behind the ears and apologetic. The only times I have ever heard it said with real raw panache is in Rap music or in Hollywood movies or American/Canadian, Cop/Law/Gangsta related TV serials.

The English, who you'd think would top the stakes in this one, lag far, far behind actually. Or, atleast, it seems so in my limited experience. When I was in Nepal a couple of months ago, I ran into this charming chap from one of the Scottish Isles – actually he claimed he didn't like the English too much ("Atleast they left India, those f-cking louts, they're f-cking well still staying put with us.") and insisted on being associated more with his French ancestry, although he didn't know a word of that language, except the correct way to pronounce 'Louvre'. Anyway, so this fellow, he came across as a True-Blue proponent of the F-word. He sprinkled it so liberally in his conversation – some people go 'Eh?' or 'Oh' or 'Yeah', he went, in all cases, 'F-ck' - it was like a staple part of his personality – you actually felt something was terribly wrong, maybe he was feeling under-weather or something, if he inadvertently didn't, for once, link two words with it. And, with his lovely accent, it wasn't even wince-inducing – as a matter of fact, I found myself actually looking forward to hearing it every time. He was rather cheesed off when he learned this was what I was listening out for. Especially when I told him that coming from him it sounded like sheer poetry. More like something from Robert Burns, you know – 'I Hae a Wife O' My Ain' or 'I Reign In Jeanie's Bosom' or even 'O Aye My Wife She Dang me' - than anything else.

"Oi," he said, bristling. "That's f-cking offensive, alright?"

I asked him if he knew where the F-word had originated, but he had no idea or interest in etymology.

"What the f-ck's etymology?"

Well, Etymology is the term used for the study of the origins of words and their meanings.

Recently I looked up the history of the F-word. It is not, like I'd thought, an acronym for anything. No, nobody ever stamped 'F.U.C.K.' on unmarried lovers' foreheads because 'For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge' was just too long a phrase to fit in the designated space, and neither did English Officials in the olden days tack up notices reading 'Fornication Under Consent of the King' on brothel entrances. Neither did it arise from the habit of English archers of taunting their French rivals with a two-fingered salute – 'Look 'ere', Frenchie, still got the fingers to 'pluck yew' (shoot an arrow from the long bow) at you'. And, no, Shakespeare didn't invent it either, although you can find mention in 'The Merry Wives of Windsor' and 'Henry V'. The Elizabethans were already familiar with what they called 'Fukkit'.

According to literary sources, the F-word might have had its origins in either or all of several languages – it might have derived from 'Fucken' (old English), 'Futuere' (Latin), 'Fokken' (old Dutch), 'Fukka' (Norwegian), 'Ficken' (German), 'Foutre' (French), 'Fottere' (Italian),, and 'Focka' (Swedish), all of which have more or less the same meaning, 'To hit'.

Supposedly, the word didn't take on its lewd 'To copulate' meaning until the 1200s when a certain Catholic monk poet used it in his new Latin-English poem 'Flen flyys' to express his opinion of some of his contemporaries -

'Non sunt in celi quia fuccant uuiuys of heli.' (The Monks won't go to heaven because they fuck the wives of Ely.)

Then, of course, having being sanctioned thus by a member of one of the greatest institution in the world, the word in its brand-new capacity spread like wild-fire and soon became one of the most widely unacceptable terms in polite society.

Of course, this story might well be, as the Irish would put it – far too much hogwash for 'Focail' (words).

George Carlin, an American TV entertainer, who, in the Seventies, was roundly castigated for endangering public innocence with his comic episode 'Seven Words you can never say on TV' , has another angle on the F-word. Forget obscene, it is, he says, plain wrong. After all if it is your serious intent to insult someone, why would you want to wish them with one of life's principle pleasures?

It should be 'Anti-F-ck You' or even (giving the French a nod for their contribution) 'Sans-F-ck Vous'.

Or maybe we should just revert back to old Chaucer. Swive You.