F*** on different perspectives
...l Battle of the Agincourt between the English bowmen and French Knight. The latter was at the losing end. English bowmen were shooting them with pointed arrows made from yew trees, which evidently could pierce the French knight’s armor. After suffering great losses, the French King decided to cut off all middle fingers of the caught English men. They discovered that the middle finger was essential for pulling and releasing arrow bows. In future battles, bowmen would taunt the French on the battlefield by extending their middle finger – a sign that they’re still intact and dangerous while they were heard yelling ‘pluck yew’. Obviously it was where we derived the middle finger gesture and the ‘pluck yew’ part was later modified to ‘fuck you’. All these etymologies are unfortunately inaccurate. Their origin aredifficult to uncover since they have been under a taboo for most of their existence and only few citations are found about it. The word ‘fuck’ can be rooted from the Middle English ‘fucken’ and the German word ‘ficken’ meaning to strike, move quickly or to penetrate. It also can be cognated with other Indo-European Languages. In Dutch, ‘fokken’ means to thrust. In Norwegian dialect, ‘fukka’ means to copulate. In Swedish, ‘focka’ means to push while fock refers to the male sex organ. Both French and Italian use similar words, ‘foutre’ and ‘fottere’, which indicate the same thing as the others. Basically all these words go down to one point. Fuck could be defined literally as the act of having a sexual intercourse. The earliest reference in history was during i1278. A certain John Le Fucker was listed in John Ayto’s Dictionary of Word Origins. The name was allegedly questioned for no other documents could support the citation. But even if it’s true, the name could only be a variant of ‘fuker’, maker of cloth or fulcher, a soldier. First known usage of the word was in the half-English half-Latin poem ‘Flen Flyss’ around 1500. The significant line in the poem was “Non sunt in celi quia fuccant uuiuys of heli” which if translated means “They [the monks} are not in heaven because they fuck the wives of Ely”. ‘Fuccant’ which means to fornicate was originally disguised by the code ‘gxddbov’ and could be deciphered by replacing each letter with its precedent in the old alphabet. Sometime in 1503, William Dunbar wrote the poem ‘Brash of Wowing’ which used the word ‘fuck’ in the form of ‘fukkit’ as in the line ‘Yit be his feirris he wald haif fukkit’. Although Shakespeare didn’t bluntly used the word, he hinted at it for satirical effect in his play ‘Merry Wives of Windsor’. Act 4, Scene 1, Line 42 – 46 includes the conversation of Sir Hugh Evans stupidly quizzing William on his Latin: Evans: What is the focative case, William? Williams: O, vocativo, O… Hugh: Remember, William, focative is caret. Mistress Quickly: And that’s a good root The word caret, which literally means missing, pertains to carrot. Carrot was equated with root and root was equated with penis, thus making a fuckative case. All these citations signify the versatility of the word ‘fuck’. It has taken different face value in the modern English language. It falls into many different grammatical categories. ‘Fuck’ can be used as a transitive verb, “He fucked her!” or as an intransitive verb, “She was fucked by him.” It could take the use of a noun as in “She is a fine fuck” or as an adverb, “She is fucking interested in him.” It could obtain the present participle form ‘fucking’ and be inserted in the middle of a word for intensifying effect. Examples of which are abso-fucking-lutely, in-fucking-credible and fan-fucking-tastic. Its past participle form indicate that something is totally messed up like for instance, “Your engine’s fucked because you forgot to change the oil!” ‘Fuck’ could also be used as an interjection or as a phrasal verb. In terms of portmanteau, ‘fuck’ is joined with another...