the body part which the french threatened to cut off of the english if they had been been captured, was of course, their middle fingers, without which it is impossible to draw the renowned english longbow.

this famous weapon was made of the english yew tree and so the act of drawing the longbow was known as "plucking the yew". thus, when the victorious english waved their middle fingers at the defeated french, the said, "see, we can still pluck yew. pluck yew ".

over the years some folk etymologies have grown around this symbolic gesture. since "pluck yew" is a bit of a communication problem, both to the tounge and ear, like "pleasant mother pheasant plucker", which is who you had to go to for the feathers used on arrows, the difficult consonant cluster at the be ginning has gradually changed to a labiodental fricative "fuck yew", and thus the words often used in conjuntion with the one -finger-salute are mistakenly thought to have something to do with an intimate encounter. it is also because of the pheasant feathers on the arrows that the symbolic gesture is known as "giving the bird".

deriving the etymology of this word is difficult, as it has been under a taboo for most of its existence and citations are rare. the earliest known use, according to ahd3 and hdas, predates 1500 and is from a poem written in a mix of latin and english and entitled 'flen flyys.' the relevant line reads:

"non sunt in celi quia fuccant uuiuys of heli."

"they [the monks] are not in heaven because they fuck the wives of ely [a town near cambridge]."

ayto mentions the word's use in 1278 as a personal name, john le fucker, but fails to provide a citation. the earliest usage cite in the oed2 dates from 1503 and is in the form 'fukkit.' the earliest cite of the current spelling is from 1535.

the word was not in common (published) use prior to the 1960s. shakespeare did not use it, although he did hint at it for comic effect. in merry wives of windsor (iv.i) he gives us the pun "focative case." in henry v (iv.iv), the character pistol threatens to "firk" a french soldier, a word meaning "to strike," but commonly used as an elizabethan euphemism for fuck. in the same play (iii.iv), princess katherine confuses the english words "foot" and "gown" for the french "foutre" and "coun" (fuck and cunt, respectively) with comic results. other poets did use the word, although it was far from common. robert burns, for example, used it in an unpublished manuscript.

the taboo was so strong that for 170 years, from 1795 to 1965, fuck did not appear in a single dictionary of the english language. in 1948, the publishers of the naked and the dead persuaded norman mailer to use the euphemism "fug" instead, resulting in dorothy parker's comment upon meeting mailer: "so you're the man who can't spell fuck."

the root is undoubtedly germanic, as it has cognates in other northern european languages: middle dutch fokken meaning to thrust, to copulate with; dialectical norwegian fukka meaning to copulate; and dialectical swedish focka meaning to strike, push, copulate, and fock meaning penis. both french and italian have similar words, foutre and fottere respectively. these derive from the latin futuere.

while these cognates exist, they are probably not the source of fuck, rather they probably come from a common root. most of the early known usages of the english word come from scotland, leading some scholars to believe that the word comes from scandinavian sources. others disagree, believing that the number or northern cites reflects that the taboo was weaker in scotland and the north, resulting in more surviving usages. the fact that there are citations, albeit fewer of them, from southern england dating from the same period seems to bear out this latter theory.

analysis of fuck

 perhaps one of the most interesting and colorful words in the english language today is the word "fuck." it is the one magical word, which, just by it's sound can describe pain, pleasure, love and hate. in language, "fuck" falls into many grammatical categories. it can be used as a verb, both transitive (john fucked mary) and intransitive (mary was fucked by john). it can be an active verb (john really gives a fuck) or a passive verb (mary really doesn't give a fuck) or an adverb (mary is fucking interested in john), and a noun (mary is a terrific fuck). it can be used as an adjective (mary is fucking beautiful). as you can see there are very few words with the versatility of "fuck." besides it's sexual connotations, this incredible word can be used to describe many situations:

greetings--------------"how the fuck are you?"
fraud------------------"i got fucked be the car dealer."
dismay-----------------"oh, fuck it!"
trouble----------------"well, i guess i'm fucked now."
aggression-------------"fuck you!"
disgust----------------"fuck me!"
confusion--------------"what the fuck...?"
difficulty-------------"i don't understand this fucking business."
despair----------------"fucked again!"
incompetence-----------"she fucked up everything."
displeasure------------"what the fuck is going on here?"
pleasure---------------"what a great fuck!"
lost-------------------"where the fuck are we?"
disbelief--------------"unfuckingbelievable!"
retaliation------------"up your fucking ass!!"
it can be used in an anatomical description--"she's a fucking bitch.
it can be used to tell time--"it's five fucking thirty."
it can be used in business--"how did i wind up with this fucking job?"
it can be maternal--as in "motherfucker."
it can be political--"fuck tip o'neil,"
and never forget general custer's last words: "where did all them fucking indians come from?" also the famous last words of the mayor of hiroshima: "what the fuck was that?" and last but not least, the immortal words of the captain of the titanic, who said "where is all of this fucking water coming from? the mind fairly boggles at the many creative uses of the word! how can anyone be offended when you say fuck? use it daily in your speech, it will add to your prestige. today...say to someone..."fuck you!!"