

The legal history of "fuck" (2007) [pdf] - jjguy
http://www.cardozolawreview.com/Joomla1.5/content/28-4/28-4.FAIRMAN.pdf

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skeltoac
"Fuck’s continued vitality is even more amazing when compared to the fate of
its sixteenth century synonyms: jape and sarde are virtually unknown;
Chaucer’s swive is archaic; and occupy returns to English with a nonsexual
meaning."

Apparently "occupy" was during 16c.-17c. a euphemism for "have sexual
intercourse with," which caused it to fall from polite usage. This gives new
meaning to the contemporary Occupy Wall Street movement.

~~~
pamelafox
I have to admit that I have made "occupy my pants" jokes numerous times in the
past few weeks, and reading this bit of trivia just gives me more reason to
continue with my immaturity. :)

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JonnieCache
My, what an enormous quantity of footnotes. There is more footnote than paper.
It seems to be largely an excuse to not bother planning and structuring your
essay properly.

Very interesting though.

My fuck related question: why do some people on the internet self censor with
asterisks in their postings? F*ck and so on. I have tried many times to
imagine a logical thought process that could lead to this behaviour, but I
cannot. Perhaps someone here who does this can enlighten me?

~~~
anatoly
Do you feel similarly unenlightened about using the term "the f-word", or is
that easier to understand than using f*ck?

~~~
JonnieCache
The f-word, although it still sounds slightly silly to my ears, actually makes
sense because it's a euphemism. It's a contraction of "the word beginning with
F" and when you say "the f-word" you are not saying "fuck" but simply
referring to it, even though in practice everyone still knows what you mean.

My confusion with f&ck is that _you're still saying fuck._ There's absolutely
no difference between fuck and f!ck except for the 25% difference in the
symbols committed to the page.

This implies that it is the particular combination of geometric forms that is
offensive or shocking, rather than the sentiment they represent, and I don't
believe that this is what people actually think. However there is no other
conclusion that I can see, other than widespread cognitive dissonance.

I don't mean to and sound superior or arrogant, although I accept that I
probably do. I only bring it up because I sincerely want to understand better.

The other thing I have noticed about this phenomenon is that it is not
restricted to conservative or particularly public arenas, or even to ones with
a general expectation of professionalism like this one. I have recently seen
it in discussions between activist types about recent episodes of police
brutality: "The UC Davis police are utter c*nts." This was in a context where
people routinely discuss civil disobedience and disregard for authority,
certainly not somewhere anybody would be offended by such language, and not
somewhere you would expect people to be reinforcing taboos around speech and
self-expression.

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pamelafox
When I took linguistics, we studied "expletive infixation" in two of our
courses -- and in American English, the main example of that is the word
"fuck", as in "abso-fucking-lutely".

My first professor had no problems leading the class with that example, whilst
my second professor became very timid during that lesson and had us use
"bloody" from British English instead. It's amusing to me that even linguistic
professors can become shy at the sound of an obscene word -- the taboo-ness is
that ingrained into us.

More on expletive infixation:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expletive_infixation>

------
garethsprice
Disappointed that the author missed out the notable case of Arkell v.
Pressdram (1971), frequently referenced in England's Private Eye magazine.
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_Eye#Litigation>)

