The Year of the F-word 

Page 2 of 4

F-Word Evolution

So just where did this incendiary vulgarism come from? One common-and erroneous-theory is that it originated as an acronym. There are several variations of the acronym theory, including one that says "fuck" stood for "Fornication Under Consent of the King," which was supposedly tacked up over the doors of government-approved brothels in early England. Another theory says the word originated as a medical diagnostic notation on the documents of soldiers in the British Imperial Army. When a soldier was found to have V.D., the abbreviation F.U.C.K. was stamped on his documents, which stood for "Found Under Carnal Knowledge." Still another theory says "For the Use of Carnal Knowledge" was stamped on condoms, or, alternatively, used as a law term in the 1500s when referring to rape as "For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge." The latter theory is so popular, Van Halen adopted it for the title of their 1991 album.

Most linguists now agree that the word fuck did not originate as an acronym, but instead crept, fully formed, into the English language around the 15th century. It's believed to have derived from the Old German "ficken/fucken" meaning "to strike or penetrate," which had the slang meaning "to copulate." Despite the fact that it was originally a German word, its first known appearance was in English literature in the satirical poem, "Flen, Flyss" (c.1500), which ridiculed the monks of a particular abbey in England. The word was both disguised as a Latin word and encrypted -- "gxddbov," deciphered as "fuccant," pseudo-Latin for "they fuck."

The word was first recorded in a dictionary in 1598 (John Florio's A World of Words), and its usage continued to grow more common. "In the 16th and 17th centuries, it was used by well-known poets like Robert Burns and Lord Rochester, and it appeared in numerous dictionaries," says Sheidlower. However, starting in the late 18th century, the word came to be regarded as increasingly vulgar and offensive, it grew rare in print, and was even banned from the Oxford English Dictionary. Sheidlower points out that it wasn't until after WWII that it started to appear again in the mainstream media, including magazines like Harpers and The Atlantic Monthly in the 1960s. The word made its first mainstream cinematic appearance in the 1970 films M*A*S*H and Myra Breckinridge. (The word did appear in less mainstream movies prior to this, including I'll Never Forget What's "Isname and Ulysses, both released in 1967.)

Decency and the Veep

A big part of the F-word's modern social evolution and proliferation can be attributed to pioneering comedians like Richard Pryor and Redd Foxx, who used it so masterfully -- and perhaps most important, so casually -- in their acts. George Carlin, of course, is credited with popularizing the F-word in his "Seven Filthy Words" routine. In fact, a 1975 radio broadcast of this routine on Pacifica Foundation Radio Station WBAI, New York, was a benchmark moment in defining obscenity laws.

The Federal Communications Commission received a single complaint about the Carlin monologue from a man named John R. Douglas, a member of the national planning board for Morality in Media. The FCC found that the program violated indecency rules, and the case made its way to the Supreme Court. The court held that broadcasters historically had received less constitutional protection than the traditional press and that "the broadcast media have established a uniquely pervasive presence in the lives of all Americans." The court thus approved the FCC's legal definition of indecency, which focused on "the exposure of children to language that describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium, sexual or excretory activities and organs at times of the day when there is a reasonable risk that children may be in the audience."

Ever since then, the FCC has been engaged in continuous litigation to clarify the basic requirements of its indecency policy, and over the years the commission has leveled millions of dollars in fines against radio stations and media outlets that broadcast shock jocks like Howard Stern.

Throughout the 1980s, rap groups helped continue the promulgation of the F-word, particularly Public Enemy and NWA, with incendiary songs like "Fuck tha Police" from their 1988 album Straight Outta Compton. In addition, movies like Platoon (1987) and Full Metal Jacket (1988) were obscenity-laden to a degree the public had never before seen or heard. And of course Scarface (1983) -- practically required viewing today for any rapper worth his weight in gold teeth -- broke new ground; the F-bomb is reportedly dropped a record 219 times during the course of the movie. And more recently, the wise guys in Sopranos have taken up where Goodfellas left off, where saying the F-word is a strangely eloquent art form. And then there's actress Kim Cattrall, who practically made a career out of saying fuck with her libidinous character Samantha Jones on HBO's Sex and the City.