Every page on this site

The word

• Uncut: the complete reference to the F-wordEverything about the word fuck, uncensored and sourced: definition, etymology, history, grammar, science, culture and law. Plus a tool that tells you whether you can say it.
• Fuck: definition, pronunciation and sensesWhat fuck means. Every sense of the word as verb, noun, adjective, adverb, interjection and infix, with pronunciation, inflections and etymology.
• Where the word came fromThe real etymology of fuck, from Germanic roots and a 14th-century court roll to Lady Chatterley and the OED.
• A timeline of the F-wordSeven centuries of fuck, from medieval nicknames to broadcast regulators.
• How the word worksFuck as verb, noun, adjective, adverb, interjection and infix. A short grammar of the F-word.
• Fuck from A to Z: compounds, phrases and derivativesMotherfucker, 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 worldHow other languages say it, which are related, and how English fuck became a loanword from Amsterdam to Tokyo.
• Fuck across the English-speaking worldScotland, Ireland, Australia, America, South Africa, the Caribbean and India: how each English uses the word differently.
• Why fuck sounds the way it doesThe phonetics of the F-word: a fricative, a short vowel and a hard stop, and what research says about why swear words sound like that.
• Eff, frig, fudge and frak: the euphemismsMinced oaths from zounds to frak. Every polite stand-in for fuck, where it came from and why it works.

In culture

• Fuck in cultureThe word in film, television, music, books, comedy, politics, the press, online and on the map.
• Fuck in film and televisionRatings 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 musicFrom 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 literatureRochester, Burns, Joyce, Lawrence, Salinger, Larkin, Kelman and Welsh. How the word fought its way onto the printed page.
• Fuck in comedyLenny Bruce, George Carlin, Derek and Clive, Billy Connolly, Malcolm Tucker. Why the word is funny and who used it best.
• Fuck in politicsExpletive deleted, big fucking deal, go fuck yourself. Politicians and the word, on and off the record.
• Fuck in the pressHow 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-signFuck 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 shopsThe village of Fucking, Fucking Hell beer, FCUK, FUCT and the trademark battles over four letters.
• Fuck onlineThe Scunthorpe problem, profanity filters, algospeak, WTF, FML, the middle-finger emoji and why this domain is not a porn site.
• Fuck in sportRooney into the camera, Verstappen in the press room, stump mics, referee mics and the football crowd. The word where the microphones are always on.
• Fuck at workKitchens, trading floors, building sites, tribunals and the boardroom. When swearing at work bonds a team and when it gets you sacked.
• Fuck in wartimeHow two world wars, Vietnam and the barracks made the word universal: snafu, fubar, FNG, FTA and the Partridge rule.
• From God's wounds to fuck: swearing and religionWhy medieval England swore by God and said fuck without blushing, how the Reformation turned that upside down, and where blasphemy law went.

Science and society

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

Reference

• Can I say it here? The swearing verdictPick where you are, who can hear and how you would use it. Get a verdict on saying fuck, from "go ahead" to "could be an offence", with the reasons and the law.
• Famous uses and quotationsLarkin, Harlan, Tynan, Tucker, Connolly and others. The word at its best.
• Frequently asked questionsIs 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 quizFifteen questions on the history, grammar and culture of the word. No prizes.
• Sources and further readingThe books, papers and references behind this site.
• Glossary of termsExpletive, intensifier, infix, minced oath, semantic bleaching, coprolalia, lalochezia: the technical words used on this site, defined.
• The F-word in the classroomHow to teach the word: activities, sources and cautions for A-level English Language, sociolinguistics and media studies.
• Every page on this siteA full index of fuck.uk.com.

This site

• About this siteWhy fuck.uk.com exists, who it is for and what it is not.
• Send a correctionSpotted an error or have a source we missed? Tell us.
• SearchSearch every page of fuck.uk.com.
• Privacy and cookiesWhat fuck.uk.com collects, what it does not, how cookies and advertising work here, and your rights.
• Terms of useThe terms on which fuck.uk.com is provided, including reuse of its text and the limits of its accuracy.