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This Article Is About The English Language Word. For Other Uses, See

The word "fuck" is an English word referring to sexual intercourse that is now commonly used as an intensifier or to denote disdain. Its origin is unclear but it was first documented in the late 15th century. While considered highly offensive in modern English-speaking societies, it has become more publicly acceptable in recent decades due to its increasing usage, though it retains taboo status for some.

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83 views2 pages

This Article Is About The English Language Word. For Other Uses, See

The word "fuck" is an English word referring to sexual intercourse that is now commonly used as an intensifier or to denote disdain. Its origin is unclear but it was first documented in the late 15th century. While considered highly offensive in modern English-speaking societies, it has become more publicly acceptable in recent decades due to its increasing usage, though it retains taboo status for some.

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megawhat115
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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uck

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the English language word. For other uses, see Fuck (disambiguation).
This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and
removed. (February 2014)

Fuck is an English language word, an obscene word which refers to the act of sexual
intercourse and is also commonly used to denote disdain or as an intensifier. Its origin is obscure; it
is usually considered to be first attested to around 1475, but may be considerably older. In modern
usage, the term fuck and its derivatives (such as fucker and fucking) can be used in the position of
a noun, a verb, an adjective or an adverb. There are many common phrases that employ the word,
as well as compounds incorporating it, such as motherfucker.
Contents
[hide]

1 Offensiveness

2 Etymology

2.1 "Flen, flyys and freris"

2.2 Older etymology

2.2.1 Via Germanic

2.2.2 Via Latin or Greek

2.3 False etymologies

3 Grammar

4 Early usage

5 Rise of modern usage

6 Modern usage

6.1 Examples of more recent usage

6.2 Use in politics

6.3 Use in marketing

6.4 Band names

6.5 Holy fuck

6.5.1 "for fuck's sake"

6.6 Machine mistranslation

6.7 F-bomb

7 Censorship

7.1 Freedom of expression

8 Common alternatives

9 See also

10 References

11 Further reading

12 External links

Offensiveness
The word's use is considered obscene in social contexts, but is common in some informal and
familiar situations. It is unclear whether the word has always been considered vulgar, and, if not,
when it first came to be used to describe (often in an extremely angry, hostile or belligerent manner)
unpleasant circumstances or people in an intentionally offensive way, such as in the
term motherfucker, one of its more common usages in some parts of the English-speaking world. In
the modern English-speaking world, the word fuckis often considered highly offensive. Most Englishspeaking countries censor it on television and radio. Andrea Millwood Hargrave's 2000 study of the
attitudes of the British public found that fuck was considered the third most severe profanity and its
derivativemotherfucker second. Cunt was considered the most severe. Nevertheless, the word has
become increasingly less vulgar and more publicly acceptable, an example of the "dysphemism
treadmill", wherein vulgarities become inoffensive and commonplace. However, lawyer and linguist
professor Pamela Hobbs, has stated that, "notwithstanding its increasing public use, enduring
cultural models that inform our beliefs about the nature of sexuality and sexual acts preserve its
status as a vile utterance that continues to inspire moral outrage." Hobbs considers users rather
than usage of the word and sub-divides users into: 'non-users', for whom the word "evokes the core
sexual meanings and associated sexual imagery that motivate the taboo", and 'users' for whom
"metaphorical uses of the word fuck no more evoke images of sexual intercourse than does a tenyear-olds My momll kill me if she finds out evoke images of murder," where the "criteria of taboo
are missing." The word was included for the first time as one of three vulgarities in The Canadian
Press's Canadian Press Caps and Spelling guide in 2005 because of its increasing usage in the
public forum. Journalists were advised to refrain from censoring the word but use it sparingly and
only when its inclusion was essential to the story.
[1]

[2][3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

Etymology
The Oxford English Dictionary states that the ultimate etymology is uncertain, but that the word is
"probably cognate" with a number of native Germanic words with meanings involving striking,
rubbing, and having sex.
[7]

"Flen, flyys and freris"


The usually accepted first known occurrence is in code in a poem in a mixture of Latin and English
composed in the 15th century. 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. Deciphering the phrase "gxddbov xxkxzt pg ifmk", here by replacing each letter by
the previous letter in alphabetical order, as the English alphabet was then, yields the macaronic non
sunt in coeli, quia fvccant vvivys of heli, which translated means, "They are not in heaven, because
they fuck wives of Ely". The phrase was coded likely because it accused monks of breaking their
vows of celibacy; it is uncertain to what extent the word fuck was considered acceptable at the time.
(The stem of fvccant is an
[8]

[9]

[8]

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