Going down the coney hole

Easter: It’s a fuckable feast.

For its Christian observers, of course, Easter marks the salvific resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. A cornerstone of the faith, the holiday teems with symbols of new life and fertility. Celebrants observe it during the flowering of springtime. Related to the word east, Easter etymologically evokes the rebirth of “dawn.” Eggs hatch baby chicks. And rabbits…well, they fuck like rabbits.

Easter is an ancient, complex, and venerable occasion, no doubt, but this is Strong Language. Here, we like to hunt for the sweary Easter eggs scattered throughout the lawn of language. I’ve spotted one in the holiday’s cute and cuddly icon: the bunny.

When fucks fly

What exactly is a flying fuck? And why does this fuck fly?

ThinkGeek’s remote-controlled Flying Fuck. The manufacturer recommends it for ages 6 and up. Image from Amazon.com.

Flying fuck enjoys many fun literal interpretations. Gadget-heads might like the remote-controlled helicopter featured above, craftier folk this flying fuck lovingly fashioned from “wire hate,” both as Nancy Friedman shared with me.

Urban Dictionary offers a number of humorous entries for flying fuck, too, including a rare, African “flightless bird” and a rather acrobatic sex act. Speaking of birds, some do hook up mid-flight (at least as part of courtship) – not unlike the more adventurous frequent fliers among us. Creativity (and Mother Nature) aside, the earliest record of flying fuck is, in fact, a literal one. But let’s save the best for last.

What the fuck is the “A” in “fucking A”?

Swearing loves the alphabet – or euphemisms for swearing do, at least. To avoid saying fuck outright, we might just drop an f bomb, sidestep with the f word, or register ‘initial’ reactions with WTF. Some swears play with spelling: see you next Tuesday, say. Yet others, including a number originating from military expressions, are acronyms: snafu, or Situation Normal: All Fucked Up. That’s no BS, an abbreviation of bullshit that Mark Peters has written a whole damn book on.

But what about fucking A? What is this A doing? Is it standing in for another swearword? What the fuck is this A in fucking A?