Re: The Who Mailing List Digest V10 #129

[John Hughes <john@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Bill, re

> > And last but not least, the immortal words of the captain of the
> > Titanic, who said "Full speed ahead and fuck the iceberg" and five
> > minutes later said
> >
> > "Where is all this fucking water coming from?

Its root is unclear; its earliest recorded use is before 1500, from the 
English-Latin poem Flen flyys: "Non sunt in celi quia fuccant uuiuys of 
heli" ("They are not in heaven because they fuck the wives of Ely").

There is an evident connection to the German word ficken (to fuck, in 
dialects: to rub, to scratch, and historically: to strike), and to the 
Latin futuere (hence the French foutre and Italian fottere), but there 
is considerable doubt and no clear lineage for these derivations.

It has cognates in other Germanic languages, such as Middle Dutch fokken 
(to thrust, to copulate), dialectical Norwegian fukka (to copulate), and 
dialectical Swedish focka (to strike, copulate) and fock (penis).

There is perhaps even an original Celtic derivation; futuere being 
related to battuere (to strike, to copulate); which may be related to 
Irish bot and Manx bwoid (penis). The argument is that battuere and 
futuere (like the Irish and Manx words) comes from the Celtic *bactuere 
(to pierce), from the root buc- (a point). An even earlier root may be 
the Egyptian petcha (to copulate), which has a highly suggestive 
hieroglyph.

Part of the reason for the difficulty of the etymology is that the word 
was too taboo for the original Oxford English Dictionary.

There are many imaginative, false folk etymologies, including the 
acronyms "Fornication Under Consent of the King", which was supposedly 
placed on signs above houses in medieval England during times of 
population control, and "For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge", supposedly 
written on the stocks above people who committed adultery or "Forced 
Unlawful Carnal Knowledge" in various things linked to rape cases. These 
acronyms were never heard before the 1960s, according to the 
authoritative lexicographical work, The F-Word.

And finally, to keep this withing the bounds of an on topic post, who 
can forget the famouw words of Pete Townshend,

Fuck off of my fucking stage!! TO aBBIE hOFFMAN.

Cheers,

John

"Where'd that fucking tree come from?" - Marc Bolan

"That's not a real fucking gun." - John Lennon

"Who's gonna fucking find out?"- Richard Nixon

"Heads are going to fucking roll." - Anne Boleyn

"Let the fucking woman drive." - Commander of Space Shuttle

"It does so fucking look like her!" - Picasso

"How the fuck did you work that out?" - Pythagoras

"Fuck a duck."- Walt Disney

"I could do with some fucking rain here" - Joan of Arc

"Scattered fucking showers my ass." - Noah

"I need this parade like I need a fucking hole in my head."
- John F. Kennedy