F-ck This Shtuff!

Some material in this post may not be appropriate for all audiences…..viewer discretion is advised…..oh…..who am I kidding….like anyone other than spammers and bots reads my stuff anyways……

Thank you everyone who reads and comments on this post, you don’t know how gratifying it is to me. I honestly do try to write things I hope ya’ll will enjoy. Generally I try to write funny things about serious topics, not so much because I don’t understand the gravity, but to make it palatable.

But I think it time to write about something more fun…something more lighthearted…..one of my readers has suggested (not even kidding here) that I write a post on…..wait for it…..the etymology of f-cking! I mean….the word f-cking…..I think sharks invented f-cking……yeah….sharks….two sharks came together and made baby shark dududududuuuuuuu. (Why do I feel I’m gonna regret this?)

Working on the admirable advice of ND who has been graciously commenting and giving a respectful but differing opinion, instead of being lazy and starting my quest with wikipedia (hey….what can I say…..? I’m a tired blogger and I blog at midnight….your lucky if you even catch me sober) I begin with ActiveBeat.com. I look up “etymology of”….well….you know…..and I find this wonderful article….

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/all-about-sex/201306/the-curious-origins-our-sexual-dirty-words

I haven’t finished reading it yet, but so far it is chock full of fascinating things….most of which I already knew….not about f-cking….or the word “f-cking.” Just cool history.

According to this article, it is at least possible the word “f-ck” was part of the language all the way back to antiquity. Michael Castleman (author of the Psychology Today article, porn star, or Marvel superhero….you be the judge!?) tells the apocryphal (yeah, he tells you it is apocryphal….don’t ding the poor guy for “spreading disinformation….) story about how the Pilgrims came up with the word….I quote “As the story goes, early Massachusetts settlers who fornicated out of wedlock were punished by confinement in special stocks bearing the legend: For Use of Carnal Knowledge. The first letters of these words form the acronym “fu*k.””.

Frankly….it was fascinating when I first read that five minutes ago, but now I find it totally boring….why wasn’t it inscribed on the axe that cut off their heads? Or the poker/iron with which they branded a scarlet “A” on adulterous women? For such a thoroughly exhilarating topic, it is a very boring story…can we do better than that?

The earliest printing of the word comes from 1503, when William Dunbar printed “fukkit” in a poem. In 1535 we have the poet David Lindsey complaining about the clergy: “Bishops may fu*k their fill and be unmarried.”

Digging just a bit deeper, we find the origin of the word comes from Old Norse-Old German; it was originally “fokken,” a word meaning “thrust, strike, or penetrate, and by extension, to copulate.” But those old pagan cultures did not view it the way later Christian creeds did. “Fokken” was fine, unless you “fokken” my wife. Then there is an honor duel, Hamlet kills his uncle, and the bbw sings.

So if the old Norse and Germans had no stigma on doing the nasty….why did it become such a terrible curse word?

The answer lies with the Bayeux Tapestry, which I cryptically posted but haven’t yet listed why that is part of the story. The Battle of Hasting in Oct. 14 1066 changed the course of English history and the language itself. William the Conqueror was a French Norman. After the conquest old French became the language of the nobles, and middle English was spoken by the conquered peasants. So the old English words became uncouth, and the nobles only used them in scorn. That is why a living bovine is named by old English “cow,” but you butcher it and put it on the noble’s plate, and it is a “steak.” So between nobles we have “les sexe,” “les rapports sexuels,” “Voulez-vous coucher avec moi.”

For the peasants: “Fokken!”