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Doug
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« Reply #1 on: December 13, 2002, 10:38:10 PM » |
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Jack, apparently you missed the rather, umm, interesting thread from the old board a couple months ago.  The word has been around over five hundred years, and probably comes from German. Its use in Unforgiven, to the best of my knowledge, is quite accurate for the time period. The earliest cite in The Oxford English Dictionary dates from 1503. John Ayto, in his Dictionary of Word Origins cites a proper name (probably a joke or parody name) of 'John le F*cker' from 1250, quite possibly proof the word we casually toss about today was being similarly tossed about 750 years ago. That's from snopes.com. I don't have the books the site is referencing, but you could seek them out, if you're that interested. By the way did G not reregister?
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"Yes, well, when I see five weirdos dressed in togas stabbing a guy in the middle of a park in full view of a hundred people, I shoot the bastards, that's my policy." Frank Drebin, Police Squad.
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Brendan
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« Reply #6 on: December 16, 2002, 09:50:12 PM » |
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The following comes from dictionary.com: Word History: The obscenity f@#k is a very old word and has been considered shocking from the first, though it is seen in print much more often now than in the past. Its first known occurrence, in code because of its unacceptability, is in a poem composed in a mixture of Latin and English sometime before 1500. The poem, which satirizes the Carmelite friars of Cambridge, England, takes its title, “Flen flyys,” from the first words of its opening line, “Flen, flyys, and freris,” that is, “fleas, flies, and friars.” The line that contains f@#k reads “Non sunt in coeli, quia gxddbov xxkxzt pg ifmk.” The Latin words “Non sunt in coeli, quia,” mean “they [the friars] are not in heaven, since.” The code “gxddbov xxkxzt pg ifmk” is easily broken by simply substituting the preceding letter in the alphabet, keeping in mind differences in the alphabet and in spelling between then and now: i was then used for both i and j; v was used for both u and v; and vv was used for w. This yields “fvccant [a fake Latin form] vvivys of heli.” The whole thus reads in translation: “They are not in heaven because they f@#k wives of Ely [a town near Cambridge].”
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KC
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« Reply #7 on: December 16, 2002, 10:05:45 PM » |
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Actually, both modern German and modern English evolved from common roots ... along with Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Icelandic, and a few others. They are all "Germanic languages." The "f-word" in modern German is so similar to the word in English that it's obvious they are "cognates" ... meaning they derive from a common Germanic root. But the English word doesn't "come" (so to speak) from the German word, or of course ... vice versa.  As far as I know (Antipatros can correct me if I'm wrong) the "f-word" (or forms of it) doesn't get thrown around as a curse word in modern German the way it does in English. Germans are more likely to use the "s-word." As for the Swedes, Norwegians and Danes ... they eschew the words for sexual activity and the scatological words altogether when they really want to curse. Instead, they invoke various words meaning "Hell" and "Devil." Andere Länder—andere Sitten!  KC
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« Last Edit: December 16, 2002, 10:08:38 PM by KC »
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Doug
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« Reply #8 on: December 17, 2002, 12:15:28 AM » |
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Actually, both modern German and modern English evolved from common roots ... along with Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Icelandic, and a few others. They are all "Germanic languages." That is more clear than my post ... I was not trying to imply that German has remained unchanged over the last thousand years, while English has evolved from Old English to Middle English to Modern English. Languages are always evolving, and Old German (is that correct?) would be as foreign to German speakers as is Old English to us. The "f-word" in modern German is so similar to the word in English that it's obvious they are "cognates" ... meaning they derive from a common Germanic root. But the English word doesn't "come" (so to speak) from the German word, or of course ... vice versa. Yes, from a common Germanic root. That's what I meant, if I wasn't being clear. I'm not an expert, so please excuse my lack of clarity. I check out from the library linguistic books, but I don't own any at this time. 
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"Yes, well, when I see five weirdos dressed in togas stabbing a guy in the middle of a park in full view of a hundred people, I shoot the bastards, that's my policy." Frank Drebin, Police Squad.
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Doug
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« Reply #10 on: December 17, 2002, 01:39:23 AM » |
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Yes, and Spanish and Italian probably are more similar to each other than they are to Latin. English and German are branches from the "Proto Germanic" language group which evolved from the "Indo European" language group. And there are probably thousands of languages that we will never know even existed. English's standing in the world is as much a part of luck as it is it's willingness to accept vocabulary from any and every source. English came from very humble beginnings, and if I remember correctly, a group of Anglo-Saxon peoples cut off from their origins, with a modest population to begin with. Had history been different, English could have become just another exinct language. So I've heard. Though of course, at that point, it would hardly have been recognizable as English to you or I.
I'm sensing you're in some sort of "mood" KC, and if so, then I'll quietly bow out of this conversation, since I'm not coming from an area of expertise, and can't really make any statement that I can back up with years of schooling.
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"Yes, well, when I see five weirdos dressed in togas stabbing a guy in the middle of a park in full view of a hundred people, I shoot the bastards, that's my policy." Frank Drebin, Police Squad.
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KC
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« Reply #16 on: December 21, 2002, 12:41:33 PM » |
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Actually ... the "f-word" only occurs about a half-dozen times in Unforgiven, and when it does, it most often is used in the literal sense (referring to the professional activity of the prostitutes). I don't have a German-dubbed copy of the film, but I have a German-language novelization, which is based on the finished film and follows it exactly (there was never an English-language novelization). And every time someone says "F@ck" in the literal sense, it's translated with the appropriate grammatical form of "ficken." LITTLE BILL: Oh, you figure nobody'd wanna f@ck her now, right? LITTLE BILL: Du meinst, niemand will sie jetzt noch ficken? KC
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Antipatros
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« Reply #18 on: December 22, 2002, 11:14:47 AM » |
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Yeah, you're right, but as far as I understood the meaning of the f-word, it's ever translated too "harmless". Well, another example would be the translation of "Punk" from Dirty Harry in the documentary "Out of the shadows"... It's "Rotzlöffel". And well, "Rotzlöffel" is a word that a grandmother would say to her grandson when he hadn't behaved nice, but not a word that Harry himself would say... It's often in into german translated films (I don't know if that's in other languages, too), that the words are expressed bad, or even wrong. You just have to look at some title-translations... Well, I guess I "drifted" a bit away from the topic, but it had to be said 
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