How It's Used

“…the big one, the queen-mother of dirty words, the F-dash-dash-dash word…”

—Ralphie in “A Christmas Story,” (1983).

“The show is peppered with salty language, though plenty of kids attended the performance I saw. My guess is that the creative team felt profligate use of the F-word was necessary—like the sauce bottle on the Elliots' kitchen table—to establish that the family is working class (which shows what a bunch of middle-class posers they are).”

—June Thomas, “The Legacy of ‘Look Back in Anger,’” Slate, May 9, 2006.

"And then, of course, there are agents, those serpents in the literary garden (Le Carre has dumped that partner as well). It was the so-called 'jackal', Andrew Wylie, who enticed Amis away from his long-standing literary agent, Pat Kavanagh. It resulted in a broken friendship with Kavanagh's husband, Julian Barnes, and a letter which, as Amis recalls, had a lot of fs in it. As in f-words."

—John Sutherland, “Shortcuts: English lit.: Why has Le Carre left his publisher in the cold?” The Guardian (UK), October 29, 2009.

"The appeals court opinion, if upheld, could stymie the FCC in its ability to put the genie back in the bottle when it comes to the f-word and such; the court all but begged the watchdog to clarify and simplify its rules on such issues."

—Elizabeth Guider, "Primetime to Get Racier After FCC Ruling: 'Friends with Benefits,' others poised to raise risque quotient," The Hollywood Reporter, July 15, 2010.

Also Known As (AKA)

F-Bomb

Links

Related on eAlmanac
eAlmanac's Editorial Policy
F-Bomb
The N-Word
Four Letter Word
George Carlin's Seven Dirty Words

Beyond eAlmanac
Wikipedia article on the F-Word
Urban Dictionary entry on F-word
Wordnik entry on F-word

Product Links
The F-Word by Jessie Sheidlower.
F**K: A Documentary. (2007)