Here are a few notes concerning today's video clip, "The Word Fuck Is A Clusterfuck." In its own ridiculous and quirky way the clip invites you to imagine how awkward a situation can become if the person you are interacting with takes your use of the word fuck at face value.
Water is the universal solvent and universal vehicle in chemistry, fuck is the universal solvent and universal vehicle in the English language. Think about it. Fuck is the go-to word that covers just about every situation under the sun, just as water dissolves and carries just about everything in the material world. When fuck is used as an expletive, things get interesting. These complications create, not a fuck, but a clusterfuck. Take the universally utilized exclamatory epithets "fuck you!" and “get fucked!" We all know what they mean, right? Or do we?
I contend that the affirmative thrust of the phrases "fuck you!", or “get fucked” is contradictory to the declamatory intention of the phrase's propagator. By rights "fuck you!" should be "unfuck you," "get fucked” should be “get unfucked,” etc. To earnestly and emphatically proclaim that you wish your interlocutor to participate in the most sacred and joyful of all life's experiences is not congruent with the intention of the invective. When we exclaim: “Get fucked!” what we really mean is that they should remain unfucked, therefore deprived of joy, pleasure, and fulfillment. Right?
The word fuck showed up in English literature around the 15th century, but it was no doubt in use for centuries before that in the popular idiom. From the start it was considered vulgar. Fuck originated from the Proto-Germanic: fuk- or fukon, ficken, and the Dutch fokken, which mean to strike or copulate. By the late 19th century "fuck you!" was in widespread use as an insult. Today the word fuck, the expletive phrase "fuck you!" and all its derivatives have been co opted into the modern lexicon and have been largely destigmatized in art and the media. (woke social media being the exception. “Fuck” is a no-no on Facebook. UNfuck you Zuck!!!)
According to my logic, if you're pissed off and you really wish bad mojo to befall your interlocutor, don't address them in the affirmative—thus wishing them well, rather, tell the asshole to go UNfuck themself. It makes much more sense. N'est-ce pas?
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