The F-Word

First known use of fuck is in a Scottish poem by William Dunbar, “Ane Brash of Wowing,” in 1503. However, it took nearly another century for fuck to make its lexicographic debut in John Florio’s 1598 Italian-English dictionary.

Not surprisingly, the etymology of fuck is unclear. Some etymologists trace fuck to Germanic languages with an original meaning of “to knock” and cognates such as Old Dutch ficken, Middle High German vicken, and German fricken. This widely accepted derivation, however, has its critics. Another possible etymology is through the French foutre and Latin futuere, but there are similar doubts and an absence of lineage for this derivation as well. Possibly there is a hybrid derivation where foutre participated with ficken to produce fuck. Still other etymologies suggest a Celtic derivation. Of particular interest to the lawyer-lexicographer is the suggestion of an Egyptian root petcha (to copulate).

During the last Egyptian dynasties, legal documents were sealed with the phrase, “As for him who shall disregard it, may he be fucked by a donkey.” The hieroglyphic for the phrase—two large erect penises—makes the message clear.

Understanding Taboo Language

In every culture, there are things that we are not supposed to do and things we are not supposed to say: taboo acts and taboo words. Sometimes there’s a correlation, such as Western society’s taboos relating to sex. While sex is not entirely forbidden, it is regulated by a set of conscious and unconscious rules; given the appropriate time, place, and person, sex is not taboo. Incest, however, is taboo—so is the word motherfucker.
While some taboo acts have corresponding taboo words, others do not. Cannibalism is one of our taboo acts. However, there are no unprintable English words—taboo words—referring to cannibalism. There are also purely linguistic taboos.

For example, Thai speakers in an English environment do not use certain Thai words because they sound like taboo English words, such as the Thai words fâg (sheath), fág (to hatch), and phríg (chili pepper).78 Similarly, Thai speakers avoid English words, such as yet, that sound similar to taboo Thai words, such as jéd, a taboo Thai word for sexual interc ourse.
The Polynesian word taboo itself has two precisely opposite meanings: one that is “sacred or consecrated” and the other “impure, prohibited, dangerous, and disgusting.”

Generally, taboo words fall into one of these two broad categories. Due to its sacred nature, the Hebrews would not say their word for God. For our Germanic ancestors, the names of fearsome animals were taboo. Their word for bear is unknown because it was never recorded. Similarly, in parts of West Africa, the word for snake is taboo. The reptile is referred to euphemistically as a stick or piece of rope. Of course, taboo words relating to body functions are also commonplace—which leads us to fuck.

Psycholinguistics and Fuck

An understanding of fuck as taboo language begins with Columbia University English Professor Allen Walker Read’s groundbreaking work in 1934. Read combined both linguistic and psychoanalytic principles to understand the nature of obscenity in general and the taboo status of fuck in particular. He viewed obscenity as a symbolic construct: “obscenity lies not in words or things, but in attitudes that people have about words and things.” The deep psychological motivation for taboo, according to Read, “probably has its roots in the fear of the mysterious power of the sex impulse.”90 Because primitive man found that the force of passion could so disorder life, he hedged it with prohibitions. The taboo persists because there is an emotional reaction, or “fearful thrill,” that generates from speaking the forbidden word. If you use the word to insult someone or to feel the thrill of doing something that is forbidden, you are actually observing the taboo; this is often labeled as “inverted taboo.” Thus, both silence and use of the taboo word perpetuate it.

It took twenty years before another psycholinguist, Dr. Leo Stone, returned to the study of fuck. With his inquiry, all the tools of psychoanalysis were brought to bear on the taboo word. To Stone, the application of psychoanalysis to fuck was natural: “Since language is the chief instrument of psycho-analysis, and sex is a major field of its scientific and therapeutic interest, the investigation of an obscene word would seem a natural psycho-analytic undertaking[.]” His 1954 article was in response to one of his patient’s persistent use of the word fuck during analysis sessions. Determined to better understand both his patient’s use and the taboo status of fuck, Stone provides both an encyclopedic narrative of the history and etymology of fuck and his own theory explaining its use. Stone concluded that “based on inferences from clinical observation, the opinion is established that the important and taboo English word ‘fuck’ bears at least an unconscious rhyme relation to the word ‘suck’ within the framework of considerations that determine the general phenomenon of obscenity, including the anal emissive pleasure in speech.” Thus Stone “developed the preliminary idea that the rhyme with the word ‘suck’ may have been an important unconscious determinant in the linguistic fixation and taboo of our word in general usage.”

Whether you are willing to fully embrace Read or Stone’s hypotheses or not, these early psycholinguists provide us with two keen insights. First, fuck persists not in spite of taboo, but because of it. As Read aptly put: “A word is obscene not because the thing named is obscene, but because the speaker or hearer regards it, owing to the interference of a taboo, with a sneaking, shame-faced, psychopathic attitude.” Having set aside the word fuck as an obscenity symbol, we work hard to maintain the sacredness of the symbol. This is done primarily by implanting the taboo in our children. Children are taught a language of discourse—“this is a cat” and “this is a tree.” However, they are not offered the words to describe sex. A split world remains: “a world of things with legitimate official names” and a world of silence—taboo.
The second contribution of the psycholinguists is that fuck is taboo because of our buried, subconscious feelings about sex. Read held this belief and more recent commentators, like Richard Dooling, concur:

Perhaps, as Read suggests, we carefully and subconsciously gather all the indelicate and unseemly associations we have with the brute act of reproduction, incest, sex outside of marriage, sex without love, selfish sex, child sexual abuse, fatal venereal diseases—and assign them all to a single unspeakable word. When the word is uttered, it stirs up all these unconscious, unspeakable aspects of sexual congress, which we don’t like to think about because they threaten the social order in a terrifying way.

Even if you do not find Stone’s fuck/suck hypothesis compelling, the psychoanalytic link to sex he espouses is widely accepted. It finds expression in those researchers who explain fuck’s taboo status as a reflection of the Oedipus complex.

According to Dr. Ariel Arango in his book Dirty Words: Psychoanalytic Insights, “the ‘dirty’ word, to fuck, always means, at root, to fuck one’s mother; to go back to her womb. Such is the universal Oedipus longing.” Everyday use of the word would awaken the “sleeping dogs” among fathers and sons. Therefore, a ban on the word fuck is essential to bury the universal incestuous desire.

The importance of psychoanalysis to an understanding of fuck is not to the exclusion of other disciplines. Etymologists provide us with a valuable historical account of usage and taboo. Linguists point out that the phonological pattern of consonant+vowel+hard consonant+consonant may explain why fuck survived while 16th century contemporaries like swive and jape did not. Sociologists note the cultural influences on offensive speech. For example, use of fuck may be appropriate for some contexts (like a dorm room) but not others (like the Dean’s office). Still other social scientists search for an integrated theory to explain fuck. Despite these contributions, psycholinguistics offers the fullest explanation of fuck as taboo, as well as an insight into how to counteract its effects.

Effects of Taboo

Word taboo is irrational. It is one thing to ban certain acts; as a society we are probably better off. But to proscribe naming those same acts makes no sense. Yet that is precisely what we do. In the case of fuck, the taboo is also unhealthy. Emerging from an unhealthy attitude about sex, fuck is an example of what Read calls a “word fetish.”

The extreme emotional response to the word only serves to perpetuate negative attitudes toward sex. Yet the taboo is so strong many engage in individual self-censorship. Some overzealous adherents extend their own sense of “good words” and “bad words” to limit the use of fuck by others. The taboo effect is institutionalized when offensive language leads to legal prosecutions or censorship. An understanding of the intersection of fuck and the law must begin with an appreciation for our individual reactions to taboo.

Psycholinguistics provides the insight into the way we react to the taboo nature of fuck. Taboo effect is so strong we engage in self-censorship. However, refraining from using the stigmatized word doesn’t reduce the taboo effect. Deliberate silence actively abets the taboo rather than ignores it.113 Even those of us with the tools to understand the taboo effect often capitulate. For example, teachers who avoid using shocking words in the classroom when the topic involves speech certainly perpetuate taboo, as well as shirk their pedagogical responsibilities. How can you teach the “Fuck the Draft” case without using the word? But there are those who do.

A corollary of self-censorship is the use of euphemisms. The “f-word” surely is our most common fuck euphemism. Presumably, it allows the speaker to both communicate the precise word intended, while at the same time conforming to the cultural taboo. This just seems silly. Everyone versed in the English language immediately knows that the f-word is fuck. In fact, if the meaning were not universal the euphemism wouldn’t work. So the only rationale for using the f-word instead of fuck is that those who are well-mannered simply don’t say words in public that they wouldn’t say in front of their parents or grandparents. This, of course, is merely another way of describing how taboo is passed from one generation to the next.

Those who give in to the pressure of taboo not only serve to reinforce it, but also empower the self-appointed guardians of speech to restrict fuck’s use by others. I’m not talking about real “speech police” (the FCC), but ordinary citizens or private businesses that want to impose their version of what is appropriate speech on others. The complaining passengers, flight attendants, and Southwest officials who combined to eject the woman wearing the “Meet the Fuckers” t-shirt from her flight, all create a classic example of moralists overstepping their bounds. Almost daily, I encounter invisible others trying to control my use of language through email. The popular Eudora email program rates the use of fuck with its highest “three chili pepper” rating and a juvenile attempt at a humorous message. Still, the intent is to make me engage in self censorship. Popular music has also been a fertile ground for this type of vigilante censorship.
The quintessential punk group the Sex Pistols felt the censorship of others as record labels played “hot potato” with them over the lyrics to their songs in the late 1970s. In 1984, the Dicks released a 7” record (back in the days of vinyl) entitled “Peace?” that included the song “No Fuckin’ War.” However, the company that printed the record jacket was offended and blacked-out “Fuckin” from the cover leaving only “No ______ War.” Recently, some radio stations took self-censorship one more step by banning the pop group Black-Eyed Peas’ hit, “Don’t Phunk with my Heart,” apparently in an attempt to eliminate even euphemisms for fuck. The music industry’s concern over fuck in lyrics could also be due to fear of institutionalized taboo—government censorship.

Institutionalized taboo takes many forms. State anti-obscenity statutes, like the archaic one from Michigan used against Timothy Boomer, are examples. There are federal statutes, such as Title VII, designed for different purposes that are being used to clean up workplace dialogue. There are even institutional organizations, like the FCC, that are used for censorship in this country. However, all of these manifestations of institutionalized taboo are empowered by our Supreme Court—a Court constrained by the effects of taboo. The resulting fuck jurisprudence is characterized by inconsistent treatment of fuck, unnecessary conflicts, and uncertainties.