Index

Every page on this site

The word

• The most versatile word in English
  Everything about the word fuck: definition, etymology, history, grammar, science, culture, law and etiquette. The reference site, not the other kind.
• Fuck: definition, pronunciation and senses
  What fuck means. Every sense of the word as verb, noun, adjective, adverb, interjection and infix, with pronunciation, inflections and etymology.
• Where the word came from
  The real etymology of fuck, from Germanic roots and a 14th-century court roll to Lady Chatterley and the OED.
• A timeline of the F-word
  Seven centuries of fuck, from medieval nicknames to broadcast regulators.
• How the word works
  Fuck as verb, noun, adjective, adverb, interjection and infix. A short grammar of the F-word.
• Fuck from A to Z: compounds, phrases and derivatives
  Motherfucker, clusterfuck, fuckwit, snafu, WTF and a hundred more. A glossary of every word and phrase built on fuck, with dates where known.
• Fuck around the world
  How other languages say it, which are related, and how English fuck became a loanword from Amsterdam to Tokyo.

In culture

• Fuck in culture
  The word in film, television, music, books, comedy, politics, the press, online and on the map.
• Fuck in film and television
  Ratings rules, the watershed, the films that use it most, The Wire, Deadwood, The Thick of It and the night the Sex Pistols met Bill Grundy.
• Fuck in music
  From the Fugs and Jefferson Airplane to NWA, Rage Against the Machine and Cee Lo Green. Parental advisory stickers, radio edits and Christmas number ones.
• Fuck in literature
  Rochester, Burns, Joyce, Lawrence, Salinger, Larkin, Kelman and Welsh. How the word fought its way onto the printed page.
• Fuck in comedy
  Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, Derek and Clive, Billy Connolly, Malcolm Tucker. Why the word is funny and who used it best.
• Fuck in politics
  Expletive deleted, big fucking deal, go fuck yourself. Politicians and the word, on and off the record.
• Fuck in the press
  How newspapers, broadcasters and style guides handle the word: asterisks, the F-word, expletive deleted and printing it in full.
• The gesture: the middle finger and the V-sign
  Fuck you without words. The middle finger from Diogenes to baseball, and the British two-finger salute, minus the Agincourt myth.
• Fuck on the map and in the shops
  The village of Fucking, Fucking Hell beer, FCUK, FUCT and the trademark battles over four letters.
• Fuck online
  The Scunthorpe problem, profanity filters, algospeak, WTF, FML, the middle-finger emoji and why this domain is not a porn site.

Science and society

• Why we say it
  What swearing does in the brain and body, and why fuck is the word people reach for.
• The science of swearing
  Aphasia, Tourette's, the limbic system, second languages, gender, age and class. What research actually shows about swearing.
• Fuck by the numbers
  How often people swear, who swears most, what Ofcom found, corpus frequencies and the films with the highest counts.
• Why we should think twice
  Overuse, audience, workplaces, children and the law: the case for keeping fuck in reserve.
• Fuck and the law
  Obscenity trials, the Public Order Act, Ofcom, the BBFC, the FCC, trademark rulings and whether swearing is illegal in the UK.
• Children and the word
  When children learn to swear, whether it harms them, what schools do and how parents can handle it.

Reference

• Famous uses and quotations
  Larkin, Harlan, Tynan, Tucker, Connolly and others. The word at its best.
• Frequently asked questions
  Is fuck an acronym? Is it Anglo-Saxon? Is swearing illegal in the UK? Who said it first on TV? Short answers with links to the long ones.
• The F-word quiz
  Fifteen questions on the history, grammar and culture of the word. No prizes.
• Sources and further reading
  The books, papers and references behind this site.
• Every page on this site
  A full index of fuck.uk.com.

This site

• About this site
  Why fuck.uk.com exists, who it is for and what it is not.
• Send a correction
  Spotted an error or have a source we missed? Tell us.
• Search
  Search every page of fuck.uk.com.