Well, I do know that it's never meant anything but what it means today. It was probably more common in oral circulation than written down, but it probably did s

Well, I do know that it's never meant anything but what it means today. It was probably more common in oral circulation than written down, but it probably did show up in text too. I think that the Second Great Awakening would have effectively eliminated it from print during the period the graph shows. From Wikipedia: "Though it appeared in John Ash's 1775 A New and Complete Dictionary, listed as "low" and "vulgar," and appearing with several definitions,[10] fuck did not appear in any widely-consulted dictionary of the English language from 1795 to 1965. Its first appearance in the Oxford English Dictionary (along with the word cunt) was in 1972. There is anecdotal evidence of its use during the American Civil War." @tom: Ah, very interesting. OCR error would have been my second guess. http://books.google.com/books?id=EIBIJunqzeUC&pg=PA278&dq=%22fuck%22&hl=en&ei=yFslTYSdBM2r8AapmbCJAg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CEcQ6AEwBTgK#v=onepage&q=%22fuck%22&f=false http://books.google.com/books?id=EIBIJunqzeUC&pg=PA278&#... "War will fuck away their souls."