Help Revise “The F-Word”!

I am delighted to be able to announce that I have been working on a new, fourth edition of my book The F-Word.

The F-Word is a historical dictionary devoted to the word fuck, illustrating in detail every significant usage of the word: parts of speech, senses, derived forms, abbreviations, expressions, proverbs. As a historical dictionary, it, like the Oxford English Dictionary, includes quotations showing exactly how the word has been used throughout history, drawn from a wide range of sources, including famous writers, Victorian pornography, Urban Dictionary, TV shows, military diaries, Twitter and Reddit, rap lyrics, and even this blog.

The first edition came out in 1995, and was based on the Historical Dictionary of American Slang (the fuck-containing volume of which had been published in 1994). This edition largely ignored non-American uses of the word, and its treatment of entries beyond the letter F was spotty. The second edition of 1999 remedied these and other problems. The third edition, published in 2009, was a massive update; by that point I had become an editor at the OED, and was able to use its resources, as well as the greatly increased availability of online sources, to significantly expand the book. The fourth edition will benefit from the further expansion of online databases, as well as increased interest (both popular and academic) in both the use and the study of offensive language.

Interjectional “shit” in a drunken 1844 diary entry

One of the curiosities in the study of offensive language is just how recent are most of the figurative uses of the main obscene words. Though fuck can be found as far back as the fourteenth or fifteenth century (depending on how one chooses to interpret some proper-name evidence), even the most familiar non-sexual expressions are barely more than a century old: fuck you is first recorded in 1905, fucking as an intensifier is from the 1890s, interjectional fuck only from the late 1920s.

Of course, it is entirely possible that such uses were earlier, but not recorded (or discovered). This is the case with most words, but even more so with offensive language, where there are very strong taboos—cultural and often legal—against printing it. The early evidence we have for even the literal senses of such words is sparse, and there were better reasons for these senses to be recorded, not least their use for prurient purposes. And there are many clear indications that these words were in much wider use in speech. The figurative senses are that much less likely to be written down. One place we do find them is in court records, where there is a specific need for recording the precise nature of someone’s language. The earliest known examples of cocksucker (1894), motherfucking (1890), and up shit creek (1868) are all from legal or similar government records.

The USPTO’s Sweary Trademark Stockpile

After my latest post on the rejection of FUCK as a registered trademark for apparel, I offer all you aficionados of sweary trademarks another roundup of registrations.

Around 100 FUCK-formative trademarks are registered at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). That’s not including a bunch of sanitized-ish FOX, FVCKs, and similar close calls. In addition to TOM FORD FUCKING FABULOUS — the derivation of which was explored fabulously by my fellow Strong Language contributor Nancy Friedman — other registered fucking marks include:

• FUCK IT! for “noodle-based prepared meals”
• GOOD FUCKING for wine and other alcoholic beverages
• GET THE FUCK OUT OF BED for coffee beans
• FUCK PROOF for mascara

The following design mark is registered for podcast productions, which the producers intriguingly describe as “a true crime comedy podcast about cults, murder and other generally fucked up stuff”:

USPTO Still Refuses to Give a FUCK

For decades, it would have been a complete waste of your time to apply to register FUCK at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Same with F*CK, FXCK, F CK, FUK, FUX, FUHKIT, and the like. Images of a raised middle finger? Also entirely out of the question.

Then, in 2019, the Supreme Court struck down the statutory bar on registering “scandalous” trademarks. That decision opened the door to all sorts of fucking shit on the trademark register, in the name of free speech.

Or did it?

Erik Brunetti, the plaintiff who won at the Supreme Court and ultimately registered FUCT, then tried to register plain old FUCK. In June of 2021, an examining attorney refused Brunetti’s application for FUCK for sunglasses, cell phone cases, jewelry, a variety of types of bags, and retail services. Many of the same goods for which he’d already registered FUCT. The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) – essentially the appellate court of the USPTO – has agreed with that conclusion.

So scandalous trademarks are generally registrable, but FUCK isn’t? What the actual . . . heck?

Visual Swears 2: Electric Fuckaloo

Back in 2015 I wrote about visual swears in film, where profanity appears on the screen rather than on the soundtrack. The films featured in that post were The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Blade II, Shoot ’Em Up, Runaway Train, and Sorry to Bother You. Since then I’ve gathered a fuckload more.

Visual swears can have all sorts of motivations for filmmakers: humour, attitude, character type or mood, place detail, meta-commentary, and so on. After all, they’re deliberately built into a film’s production design – unless it’s a documentary, in which case they’re still selected in the framing and editing.

The first film below happens to be a documentary, and a great one: Dark Days (2000), which explores the lives of people living in a disused New York subway tunnel. One of them labels a makeshift toilet SHIT SPOT, perhaps for both informational and comedic reasons: