(2006) Steve Anderson's doc*mentary f*lm of the most obscene fo*r-letter word in the English lang*age is f*cking f*nny. Animation by Bill Plympton.

"Give me an F, give me a U, give me a C, give me a K. What's that spell?" Does fornication lead to "pornocation"? Here we have a debate between the crudes and the prudes, between the enlightened and the unenlightened, between the motherfuckers and the assholes.

Of those who favor freedom of speech, including vocal vulgarity, we have Bill Maher ("the ultimate bad word" but it's cathartic to utter), filmmaker Kevin Smith, journalist Sam Donaldson ("It's one of those all-purpose words"), actor/rapper Ice-T ("I'm gonna Boone the shit out of my wife tonight"), gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, comedian Billy Connolly ("Fuck off!"), producer Steven Bochco (a fisted bird is worth 36 "assholes"), actor Drew Carey, singer/songwriter Alanis Morissette, porn actor Ron Jeremy, publisher Ben Bradlee, shock-jock Howard Stern, writer Sandra Tsing Loh, author Janeane Garofalo, among others going up against those who prefer censorship of distasteful colloquialisms: Pat Boone ("freedom of filth," substitutes his own last name), politician Alan Keyes (unchristian conversation), Jan La Rue, Judith Martin (simply bad manners), Dennis Prager (unnecessary), Brent Brozell of the Parents Television Council (get the FCC to ban it from broadcasts and fine anyone - Janet Jackson and Bono - who allows it, making morality law), Robert Peters, a clown (compares "cigarette smoke and dirty words"), and others.

Principled evidence of the failure of the First Amendment, Lenny Bruce, stand-up comedian in the '60s, was the free-speech martyr, several times arrested for word crimes and twice convicted. In 1971 the US Supreme Court ruled that the worst word was a form of free speech. George Carlin followed in the '70s with his seven dirty words. In 1978 the FCC censored the seven dirty words.

While a senior in college in 1972, I made an oral presentation in a grammar course, featuring "fuck." At the time most dictionaries of the English language did not include an entry for "fuck." I wrote a letter to the editor-in-chief of Webster's Dictionary, Henry Bosley Woolf, requesting the etymology and definitions. I received an informative reply. The word has Germanic roots (deep in the dirt) with possible Latin influence (related to prick, poke, prod). First known instance of its appearance in print was in a poem of 1475. Professor Quick was impressed with my correspondence and novel topic in his class. A few years later a friend mentioned an article he'd read in Playboy stating that the origin of "fuck" was an acronym of "For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge." Not true, I said, explaining the word's history based on Mr Woolf's authority. At my friend's urging, I wrote a letter to Playboy, which was published in late 1974.

To say "fuck you" implies "I'm going to make a woman out of you." Clips from various films and HBO productions include "fuck" in the dialogue: M*A*S*H, Scarface, The Big Lebowski, Pulp Fiction, Sideways, Bad Santa, Terms of Endearment, Saving Private Ryan, Meet the Fockers, The Sopranos, Deadwood. Song lyrics: e.g. "The bird is a word," "Fuck tha Police," and "Don't fuck with the freedom of speech."

All the President's Men: George W. Bush ("Fuck Saddam. We're taking him out." and after flipping a bird on camera, calling it a "one-finger victory salute"), Vice President Dick Cheney ("Go fuck yourself," said to Senator Patrick Leahy in the US Senate), George H. W. Bush (flips a bird behind his back), Lyndon B. Johnson, and the notorious Richard Nixon (excerpts from the White House tapes) appear in cameos. "One, two, three, four, we don't want your fucking war." Those who curse are going to hell - "Does God care if we say 'fuck'?" - versus those who bless.

Is it blue or is it off-color? Euphemisms: fug (from Norman Mailer's novel of World War II, The Naked and the Dead, later the name of a rock'n'roll band, The Fugs), fudge, fack, feck, fick, fock. Fuck is a magical, adaptable word: The two world wars gave rise to multiple uses of obscene expressions, e.g. SNAFU (situation normal all fucked up). It has been a stand-in for important social changes.

But (here comes the big hairy butt) the most frequent objection to foul language employs the innocence of children. "Jane was fucked by Dick." Even one of the proponents of all language and most behavior as free expression admits, "I wouldn't want my kids to watch it." Similar to the arguments for decriminalizing marijuana, one can say that no one ever died from saying or hearing "fuck."

Without the freedom of speech, we could not disagree with government. "The Fuck Stops Here." A counter records each of the 825 instances of "fuck" or one of its derivatives appearing in the f*lm. In the credits there's "A very special fuck to you" section.

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Copyright © 2007 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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