5 ms·
It's amazing how many people still fall for the 'fuck-as-acronym' myths. I've literally argued with people convinced that FUCK stands for Fornication Under Cons
by area51org 5y ago
It's amazing how many people still fall for the 'fuck-as-acronym' myths. I've literally argued with people convinced that FUCK stands for Fornication Under Consent of the King, or (as Van Halen apparently believed) For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge.
No, none of the above. Nope.
- mbg721 5y agoKnowing the more likely etymology, it's a little awkward when I see the billboards for a dentist in my area named Dr. Ficker.
- flyingcircus3 5y agoA city I used to live in has a Hilfiker Ln, named for the family that has lived at the end of that street, which is on a hill, for over 150 years. I've always wondered if that was coincidence or not.
- dhosek 5y agoSpeaking of misread signs, there's a Chinese restaurant on San Vicente in Los Angeles named Hunan Taste. More than one person has mistaken that first n for an m.
- colechristensen 5y agofick is German for fuck
- kenneth 5y agoHunan is a province of China known for delicious and incredibly spicy food.
- BrandoElFollito 5y agospicy as in "hot" or as in "full of spices (flavours)"?
- dhosek 5y agoYes, I'm somehow¹ more aware of these things than most Americans. It's mostly a typographical problem. The lettering choice on the sign tends to make it easy to see an n as an m. Other restaurants offering Hunan cuisine don't seem to elicit the same reaction anywhere near as much (or maybe it's just Hunan Taste's location at a well-trafficked intersection). 1. My brain is full of all sorts of random knowledge with no good explanation for how it got there, like names of Chinese provinces or how to conjugate French verbs.
- nickthemagicman 5y agoAnd disappointed when they saw the menu had nary a single human dish.
- treeman79 5y agoIn Southern California there was brand new restaurant with a very expensive neon sign called “Thai Porn” A week later a new equally expensive sign was being installed with the less provocative “Thai Food”
- banana_giraffe 5y ago> as Van Halen apparently believed Not that it matters a ton: It was a friend of Sammy Hagar (Ray Mancini) that thought that. The band went with the name as a compromise instead of calling the album "Fuck" as a protest over censorship.
- pjc50 5y agoI've heard that one for "naff", allegedly from "not available for f--", which is probably bogus but the etymology is very unclear: https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,,-1648,00.html https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,,-1648,0... The suggestion that it comes from Polari is far more interesting, as Polari was incorporated into the great British tradition of using innuendo to get past unimaginative censoriousness. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_and_Sandy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_and_Sandy
- DonaldFisk 5y agoA propos of Polari, when I mentioned to someone who used the word "carsey" (often spelt "khazi") that it was gay slang, ultimately derived from Latin "casa" meaning cottage, he insisted that no, it wasn't, and that it came from an Indian language. I double-checked this with a native Hindi speaker who couldn't think of any Hindi cognates but I couldn't get him to change his mind.
- zeckalpha 5y agoIndia has many languages other than Hindi. A similarly spelled word comes from Urdu for example https://www.etymonline.com/word/khaki https://www.etymonline.com/word/khaki
- DonaldFisk 5y agoThat might conceivably explain the "khazi" spelling but its meaning is unrelated and in any case it isn't the derivation of the word "carsey". See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polari https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polari
- zeckalpha 5y agoSure, I just meant you can’t rule out the theory because you talked to a Hindi speaker.
- tragomaskhalos 5y agoFolk etymologies based on acronyms seem to hold a peculiar power over people's imaginations, irrespective of how obviously false they are. I remember as a lad being told that 'news' was so called because it came from the north, east, west and south :eyeroll:
- BrandoElFollito 5y agoThis is a surprisingly to-the-point "acronymisation", though!
- fenomas 5y agoThere used to be a great column in alt-weeklies called The Word Detective, that dealt with tons of these I've the years (to insure promptness, port out starboard home, etc). The author (one Evan Morris) always reminded people that acronyms were extremely rare before about WW2, and so acronym etymologies for old words are virtually always made up (Morris blamed tour guides for keeping them circulating).
- etblg 5y ago> The author (one Evan Morris) always reminded people that acronyms were extremely rare before about WW2 Why is that?