Post by Niemmy on Aug 1, 2008 20:55:06 GMT -5
Etymology
Sources such as the Oxford English Dictionary contend that the true etymology of fuck is still uncertain but appears to point to an Anglo-Saxon origin.
Flen flyys and freris
The usually accepted first known occurrence is in code in a poem in a mixture of Latin and English composed some time 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" (= "Fleas, flies, and friars"). The line that contains fuck reads "Non sunt in coeli, quia gxddbov xxkxzt pg ifmk". Removing the substitution cipher[1] on the phrase "gxddbov xxkxzt pg ifmk" yields "non sunt in coeli, quia fvccant vvivys of heli", which translated means "they are not in heaven because they fuck wives of Ely" (fvccant is a fake Latin form).[2] The phrase was coded likely because it accused some Church personnel of misbehaving; it is uncertain to what extent the word fuck was considered acceptable at the time.
John le Fucker
A man's name "John le Fucker" is said to be reported from AD 1278, but the report is doubtful: an email discussion on Linguist List says:
This name has been exhaustively argued over ... The "John le Fucker" reference first appears in Carl Buck's 1949 Indo-European dictionary. Buck does not supply a citation as to where he found the name. No one has subsequently found the manuscript in which it is alleged to have appeared. If the citation is genuine and not an error, it is most likely a spelling variant of "fulcher", meaning soldier.[3]
Anglo-Saxon
An Anglo-Saxon charter [1] [2] granted by Offa, king of Mercia, dated A.D.772, granting land at Bexhill, Sussex to a bishop, includes the text:
Þonne syndon þa gauolland þas utlandes into Bexlea in hiis locis qui appellantur hiis nominibus: on Berna hornan .iii. hida, on Wyrtlesham .i., on Ibbanhyrste .i., on Croghyrste .viii., on Hrigce .i., on Gyllingan .ii., on Fuccerham 7 and on Blacanbrocan .i., on Ikelesham .iii.;
Then the tax-lands of the outland belonging to Bexley are in these places which are called by these names: at Barnhorne 3 hides, at Wyrtlesham [Worsham farm near Bexhill ] 1, at Ibbanhyrst 1, at Crowhurst 8, at (Rye? The ridge north of Hastings?) 1, at Gillingham 2, at Fuccerham and at Blackbrook [may be Black Brooks in Westfield village just north of Hastings ] 1, at Icklesham 3.
The placename Fuccerham looks like either "the home (hām) of the fucker or fuckers" or "the enclosed pasture (hamm) of the fucker or fuckers", who may have been a once-notorious man, or a locally well-known stud male animal, or a group of such.
Older etymology
Via Germanic
The word fuck has cognates in other Germanic languages, such as German ficken (to copulate); Dutch fokken (to breed cattle), from Middle Dutch (push, thrust, copulate); dialectal Norwegian fukka (to copulate), and dialectal Swedish fucka (to strike, copulate) and fock (penis).
This points to a possible etymology where Common Germanic fuk–, by reverse application of Grimm's law, would have as its most likely Indo-European ancestor *pug–, which appears in Latin and Greek words meaning "fight" and "fist" (cf. the Latin-derived English words pugnacious = "combative", and pugilist = "fighter, boxer"). In early Proto-Germanic the word was likely used at first as a slang or euphemistic replacement for an older word for intercourse, and then became the usual word for intercourse.
The original Indo-European root for to copulate is likely to be *h3yebh– or *h3eybh–, which is attested in Sanskrit yabhati, Russian ебать (yebat'), Polish jebać, and Serbian јебати (jebati), among others: compare the Greek verb οιφω (oiphō) = "I have sexual intercourse with", and the Greek noun ζεφυρος (zephuros) (which references a Greek belief that the west wind Zephyrus caused pregnancy).
Possible Latin origins
* Other possible connections are to Latin fūtuere (almost exactly the same meaning as the English verb "to fuck"); but it would have to be explained how the word reached Scandinavia from Roman contact, and how the t became k. From fūtuere came French foutre, Catalan fotre, Italian fottere, Romanian futere, vulgar peninsular Spanish follar and joder, and Portuguese foder. However, there is considerable doubt and no clear lineage for these derivations. These roots, even if cognates, are not the original Indo-European word for to copulate, but Wayland Young (who agrees that these words are related) argues that they derive from the Indo-European *bhu– or *bhug– ("be", "become"), or as causative "create" [see Young, 1964]. A possible intermediate might be a Latin 4th-declension verbal noun *fūtus, with possible meanings including "act of (pro)creating".
*
(The Spanish verb follar has a different origin: according to Spanish etymologists, it (attested in the 19th century) derives via fuelle ("bellows") from Latin folle(m) < Indo-European *bhel–; the old Spanish verb folgar (attested in the 15th century) derived from Latin follicare, also ultimately from follem/follis.)
* A derivation from Latin facere = "to do", "to make" has been suggested.
Possible Celtic origins
* A Celtic origin has been suggested: compare Irish bot and Manx bwoid (penis), Common Celtic *bactuere (to pierce), from the root buc– (a point).[citation needed]
Possible Greek origins
Greek phyō (φυω) has various meanings, including (of a man) "to beget", or (of a woman), "to give birth to".[4] Its perfect tense pephyka (πεφυκα) has been likened to "fuck" and its equivalents in other Germanic languages.
False etymologies
One reason that the word fuck is so hard to trace etymologically is that it was used far more extensively in common speech than in easily traceable written forms.
There are several urban-legend false etymologies postulating an acronymic origin for the word. None of these acronyms was ever heard before the 1960s, according to the authoritative lexicographical work, The F-Word, and thus are backronyms. In any event, the word fuck has been in use far too long for some of these supposed origins to be possible. Some of these urban legends are:
* That the word fuck came from Irish law. If a couple were caught committing adultery, they would be punished "For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge In the Nude", with "FUCKIN" written on the stocks above them to denote the crime.
* That it came from any of:
o "Fornication Under Carnal/Cardinal Knowledge"
o "Fornication Under [the] Control/Consent/Command of the King"
o "Fornication Under the Christian King"
o "False Use of Carnal Knowledge"
o "Felonious Use of Carnal Knowledge"
o "Felonious Unlawful Carnal Knowledge"
o "Full-On Unlawful Carnal Knowledge"
o "For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge"
o "Found Under Carnal Knowledge"
o "Forced Unlawful Carnal Knowledge", referring to the crime of rape.
There are unproved stories that fuck arose as an abbreviation of one of the versions containing "unlawful":
* In armed forces log books, when reporting courts martial of men accused of homosexual intercourse.[citation needed]
* On tombstones around English cemeteries, referring to being put to death for crimes against the state and the church.[citation needed] No such tombstone has been provably found.
Usage history
Main article: History of the word 'fuck'
Early usage
Its first known use as a verb meaning to have sexual intercourse is in "Flen flyys", written around 1475.
William Dunbar's 1503 poem "Brash of Wowing" includes the lines: "Yit be his feiris he wald haue fukkit: / Ye brek my hairt, my bony ane" (ll. 13–14).
Some time around 1600, before the term acquired its current meaning, windfucker was an acceptable name for the bird now known as the kestrel[citation needed].
While Shakespeare never used the term explicitly; he hinted at it in comic scenes in several plays. The Merry Wives of Windsor (IV.i) contains the expression focative case (see vocative case). In Henry V (IV.iv), Pistol threatens to firk (strike) a soldier, a euphemism for fuck. A Midsummer Night's Dream uses the word "foot" to pun on the French equivalent, "foutre".
Rise of modern usage
Though it appeared in John Ash's 1775 A New and Complete Dictionary, listed as "low" and "vulgar", and appearing with several definitions[5], Fuck did not appear in any widely-consulted dictionary of the English language from 1795 to 1965. Its first appearance in the Oxford English Dictionary (along with the word cunt) was in 1972. There is anecdotal evidence of its use during the American Civil War.[citation needed]
In 1928, D. H. Lawrence's novel Lady Chatterley's Lover gained notoriety for its frequent use of the words fuck, fucked, and fucking.
Perhaps the earliest usage of the word in popular music was the 1938 Eddy Duchin release of the Louis Armstrong song "Ol' Man Mose". The words created a scandal at the time, resulting in sales of 170,000 copies during the Great Depression years when sales of 20,000 were considered blockbuster. The verse reads:
Sources such as the Oxford English Dictionary contend that the true etymology of fuck is still uncertain but appears to point to an Anglo-Saxon origin.
Flen flyys and freris
The usually accepted first known occurrence is in code in a poem in a mixture of Latin and English composed some time 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" (= "Fleas, flies, and friars"). The line that contains fuck reads "Non sunt in coeli, quia gxddbov xxkxzt pg ifmk". Removing the substitution cipher[1] on the phrase "gxddbov xxkxzt pg ifmk" yields "non sunt in coeli, quia fvccant vvivys of heli", which translated means "they are not in heaven because they fuck wives of Ely" (fvccant is a fake Latin form).[2] The phrase was coded likely because it accused some Church personnel of misbehaving; it is uncertain to what extent the word fuck was considered acceptable at the time.
John le Fucker
A man's name "John le Fucker" is said to be reported from AD 1278, but the report is doubtful: an email discussion on Linguist List says:
This name has been exhaustively argued over ... The "John le Fucker" reference first appears in Carl Buck's 1949 Indo-European dictionary. Buck does not supply a citation as to where he found the name. No one has subsequently found the manuscript in which it is alleged to have appeared. If the citation is genuine and not an error, it is most likely a spelling variant of "fulcher", meaning soldier.[3]
Anglo-Saxon
An Anglo-Saxon charter [1] [2] granted by Offa, king of Mercia, dated A.D.772, granting land at Bexhill, Sussex to a bishop, includes the text:
Þonne syndon þa gauolland þas utlandes into Bexlea in hiis locis qui appellantur hiis nominibus: on Berna hornan .iii. hida, on Wyrtlesham .i., on Ibbanhyrste .i., on Croghyrste .viii., on Hrigce .i., on Gyllingan .ii., on Fuccerham 7 and on Blacanbrocan .i., on Ikelesham .iii.;
Then the tax-lands of the outland belonging to Bexley are in these places which are called by these names: at Barnhorne 3 hides, at Wyrtlesham [Worsham farm near Bexhill ] 1, at Ibbanhyrst 1, at Crowhurst 8, at (Rye? The ridge north of Hastings?) 1, at Gillingham 2, at Fuccerham and at Blackbrook [may be Black Brooks in Westfield village just north of Hastings ] 1, at Icklesham 3.
The placename Fuccerham looks like either "the home (hām) of the fucker or fuckers" or "the enclosed pasture (hamm) of the fucker or fuckers", who may have been a once-notorious man, or a locally well-known stud male animal, or a group of such.
Older etymology
Via Germanic
The word fuck has cognates in other Germanic languages, such as German ficken (to copulate); Dutch fokken (to breed cattle), from Middle Dutch (push, thrust, copulate); dialectal Norwegian fukka (to copulate), and dialectal Swedish fucka (to strike, copulate) and fock (penis).
This points to a possible etymology where Common Germanic fuk–, by reverse application of Grimm's law, would have as its most likely Indo-European ancestor *pug–, which appears in Latin and Greek words meaning "fight" and "fist" (cf. the Latin-derived English words pugnacious = "combative", and pugilist = "fighter, boxer"). In early Proto-Germanic the word was likely used at first as a slang or euphemistic replacement for an older word for intercourse, and then became the usual word for intercourse.
The original Indo-European root for to copulate is likely to be *h3yebh– or *h3eybh–, which is attested in Sanskrit yabhati, Russian ебать (yebat'), Polish jebać, and Serbian јебати (jebati), among others: compare the Greek verb οιφω (oiphō) = "I have sexual intercourse with", and the Greek noun ζεφυρος (zephuros) (which references a Greek belief that the west wind Zephyrus caused pregnancy).
Possible Latin origins
* Other possible connections are to Latin fūtuere (almost exactly the same meaning as the English verb "to fuck"); but it would have to be explained how the word reached Scandinavia from Roman contact, and how the t became k. From fūtuere came French foutre, Catalan fotre, Italian fottere, Romanian futere, vulgar peninsular Spanish follar and joder, and Portuguese foder. However, there is considerable doubt and no clear lineage for these derivations. These roots, even if cognates, are not the original Indo-European word for to copulate, but Wayland Young (who agrees that these words are related) argues that they derive from the Indo-European *bhu– or *bhug– ("be", "become"), or as causative "create" [see Young, 1964]. A possible intermediate might be a Latin 4th-declension verbal noun *fūtus, with possible meanings including "act of (pro)creating".
*
(The Spanish verb follar has a different origin: according to Spanish etymologists, it (attested in the 19th century) derives via fuelle ("bellows") from Latin folle(m) < Indo-European *bhel–; the old Spanish verb folgar (attested in the 15th century) derived from Latin follicare, also ultimately from follem/follis.)
* A derivation from Latin facere = "to do", "to make" has been suggested.
Possible Celtic origins
* A Celtic origin has been suggested: compare Irish bot and Manx bwoid (penis), Common Celtic *bactuere (to pierce), from the root buc– (a point).[citation needed]
Possible Greek origins
Greek phyō (φυω) has various meanings, including (of a man) "to beget", or (of a woman), "to give birth to".[4] Its perfect tense pephyka (πεφυκα) has been likened to "fuck" and its equivalents in other Germanic languages.
False etymologies
One reason that the word fuck is so hard to trace etymologically is that it was used far more extensively in common speech than in easily traceable written forms.
There are several urban-legend false etymologies postulating an acronymic origin for the word. None of these acronyms was ever heard before the 1960s, according to the authoritative lexicographical work, The F-Word, and thus are backronyms. In any event, the word fuck has been in use far too long for some of these supposed origins to be possible. Some of these urban legends are:
* That the word fuck came from Irish law. If a couple were caught committing adultery, they would be punished "For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge In the Nude", with "FUCKIN" written on the stocks above them to denote the crime.
* That it came from any of:
o "Fornication Under Carnal/Cardinal Knowledge"
o "Fornication Under [the] Control/Consent/Command of the King"
o "Fornication Under the Christian King"
o "False Use of Carnal Knowledge"
o "Felonious Use of Carnal Knowledge"
o "Felonious Unlawful Carnal Knowledge"
o "Full-On Unlawful Carnal Knowledge"
o "For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge"
o "Found Under Carnal Knowledge"
o "Forced Unlawful Carnal Knowledge", referring to the crime of rape.
There are unproved stories that fuck arose as an abbreviation of one of the versions containing "unlawful":
* In armed forces log books, when reporting courts martial of men accused of homosexual intercourse.[citation needed]
* On tombstones around English cemeteries, referring to being put to death for crimes against the state and the church.[citation needed] No such tombstone has been provably found.
Usage history
Main article: History of the word 'fuck'
Early usage
Its first known use as a verb meaning to have sexual intercourse is in "Flen flyys", written around 1475.
William Dunbar's 1503 poem "Brash of Wowing" includes the lines: "Yit be his feiris he wald haue fukkit: / Ye brek my hairt, my bony ane" (ll. 13–14).
Some time around 1600, before the term acquired its current meaning, windfucker was an acceptable name for the bird now known as the kestrel[citation needed].
While Shakespeare never used the term explicitly; he hinted at it in comic scenes in several plays. The Merry Wives of Windsor (IV.i) contains the expression focative case (see vocative case). In Henry V (IV.iv), Pistol threatens to firk (strike) a soldier, a euphemism for fuck. A Midsummer Night's Dream uses the word "foot" to pun on the French equivalent, "foutre".
Rise of modern usage
Though it appeared in John Ash's 1775 A New and Complete Dictionary, listed as "low" and "vulgar", and appearing with several definitions[5], Fuck did not appear in any widely-consulted dictionary of the English language from 1795 to 1965. Its first appearance in the Oxford English Dictionary (along with the word cunt) was in 1972. There is anecdotal evidence of its use during the American Civil War.[citation needed]
In 1928, D. H. Lawrence's novel Lady Chatterley's Lover gained notoriety for its frequent use of the words fuck, fucked, and fucking.
Perhaps the earliest usage of the word in popular music was the 1938 Eddy Duchin release of the Louis Armstrong song "Ol' Man Mose". The words created a scandal at the time, resulting in sales of 170,000 copies during the Great Depression years when sales of 20,000 were considered blockbuster. The verse reads:
