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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsDown memory lane with English language lessons - what's that word again?
FFS - lighten up!!
dipsydoodle
(42,239 posts)Last edited Sun Jun 22, 2014, 08:54 AM - Edit history (1)
http://justin.justnet.com.au/rudestuff/uses-of-the-word-fuck.htmlYears ago when such lists were first compiled my favorites were Harold at the Battle of Hasting immediately prior to copping an arrow in the eye, "what the fuck was that" , and Custer at Little Big Horn saying "Holy cow - look at all those fucking........
malaise
(267,827 posts)TexasProgresive
(12,148 posts)What does it mean that a word that means to strike comes to mean coitus which is to come together? Since I abhor sexual violence I will abstain from using this word.
The funny thing is that it is so over used that it really doesn't mean anything. Some DUers sprinkle is so liberally in their posts that it's replacing the Valley girl, "like". My eyes just skip past it as if it isn't there because it generally doesn't make sense or add anything to the post. Perhaps it is a sign of weak vocabulary skills.
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)came the meanings related to 'collision'. Our language comes from many sources and the word meanings transition over the years. Is it bad to stroke you pet or your lover? Is not the word 'stroke' related to 'strike'? Yes it is.
One also 'strikes a match' or 'goes on strike'. We 'strike it rich' and athletes 'strike out'.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=strike
Igel
(35,197 posts)You've merged meanings and phonetic form and can't get them separated again.
It's unclear that "fuck" in 500 AD had the same meaning as "strike" in 2000 AD, but it if did that in no way means that the meaning 500 AD was the same as "strike" in 500 AD. '
"Pussy" comes from a borrowing from French, "pochette", that means "pocket" or "pouch." For a time it was a word for "purse." That in no way means that women tend to keep their keys and make up in their pussies, nor that it's rape if a man puts his cock in a woman's pocketbook.
Not that it matters. A word's history is unknown to speakers, by and large, and what it meant isn't necessarily what it means. Language isn't just a historical artefact, but a system whose usage also encodes current social values.
It's nice that linguists view it as a system of constraints or rules and associations that link meaning to phonetic form, and say how to encode other kinds of meaning in terms of sentence structure and from there in discourse structure. This is fin and dandy. But language also has levels of stylistic registers and geographical variation, all of which encode attitudes and social meanings, show how additional background information is assumed by the speaker, can be used to show insider and outsider status and so both cement and fracture a community.
An educated person, whether a griot or an Enlightenment scholar or Stephen Hawking has mastered a range of registers, including the one used for literature and polite discourse, and part of becoming "educated" in any field is to learn the appropriate register. "Fuck" originally just meant "have vaginal or anal sex with, said of a man" and was fairly neutral. When it became an intensifier it was low-class, uneducated, and has kept that status--if for no other reason that it's ambiguous and very much context bound, shows both solidarity with some and sharply excludes others. It used to show sharp shock or anger, but now it's just used to show, "Hey, I'm in *your* group and will use it to make sure that *those people* I don't like stay out." Group disdain is fairly common among kids. They see a system set up and assume that everybody that's bought into it started off that way. (They'd have profound disgust for griots and their language, as well, given American values.)
These things change, but just as it's unlikely that you'll see Obama give a speech talking about the ACA's covering "cunt cancer" during a State of the Union message any time soon, "fuck" isn't likely to change its stylistics much more any time soon. Of course, we do tend to say that it's really bad when we're offended and wonderful when others are offended--we're talking about power and oppression to some extent--so maybe we will see its stylistics change.
hobbit709
(41,694 posts)So women literally could not testify.
malaise
(267,827 posts)Thanks
Jim Lane
(11,175 posts)See "Swearing on ones testicles" for the story.
hobbit709
(41,694 posts)treestar
(82,383 posts)or to condemn them in some way. I guess it goes back to the idea that a woman has been had if she has sex with a Don Juan - in Spanish the word he used was he "enjoyed" them and then the women were considered betrayed or used. So it is a male centered Don Juan type view of sex.
valerief
(53,235 posts)nadinbrzezinski
(154,021 posts)And it is fucking brilliant!