At 1:46 PM +1000 7/17/05, keith helgesen wrote:
I think I agree with you! After all, (to sail VERY close to the
wind), the assertion is around that the acronym for "File Under
Carnal Knowledge" used to be placed on Police files- thus creating
the slang term for- well, you know!
I suspect that story is a load of rubbish!
As Darcy has pointed out, that particular story is rubbish.
But, just for the record:
The earliest citation in the OED of the word being used as a verb is
from a 1503 poem by Dunbar (with a wildly variant spelling: " Be his
feiris he wald haue fukkit." *).
Its spelling gyrates wildly until about 1680, whence it stabilizes in
its current form and makes its first appearance as a noun, doing both
in the Anonymous "Rochester's Poems on Several Occasions." ("Much
Wine had past with grave discourse, Of who F--ks who, and who does
worse." and "Thus was I Rook'd of Twelve substantial F--ks." **)
[Though both 1680 quotations are from 1950 re-transcriptions, the c.
1683 quotations of both verb (from "Sodom II": " Hee {sic.} F--ks to
please his will, but I for need.") and noun (from "Sodom": "A little
f--k can't stay our appetite." ***) usage are from the original
source, and I suspect the "Rochester" original-source had the modern
spelling.]
The etymology indicates that the word is of early Modern English
origin with a supposed derivation from a Middle English "type"
*fuken, of which no original documentary evidence apparently remains.
A relationship to the "Synonymous G. (Gaelic? German? ****) ficken"
cannot be substantiated.
Interestingly enough, there are __no__ citations prior to 1922
(Joyce, who else *****) of the word being used as slang or idiom.
That is, in all previous citations the word is used to _specifically_
refer to the _act_ of copulation, not incorporated into
figurative/metaphorical/allusive/allegorical/etc. usages similar to
"F--k this." or "The day was f--ked." or "He doesn't know f--ck." or
etc., etc.
Best wishes,
-=-Dennis
. * If anyone knows what this translates to in "Post Modern
English," I'd like to know.
. ** This latter quote has _got_ to make you want to find the
original poem, just so you can figure out what it means in context.
. *** This is from the Epilog, and is spoken by a character named
(I'm not making this up) F--kadilla. And it was written in 1683?!
This might explain a few things about the Puritans, or even suggest a
few things about what the Victorians have to answer for, depending on
your point of view....
. **** I can't find my OED abbreviations book, so reading the
etymologies is challenging.
. ***** This I will not quote, as some would find it quite
offensive; even with removed characters. The heading in the
dictionary is, "Used profanely in imprecations and exclamations as
the coarsest equivalent of damn."
n.b.: Dashes in words (--) are my replacements of the original letters.
.
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