Registered: Aug 2000
Location: Oregon
Posts: 1010

The origins of the word fuck and 10 other things you may not know

1. In Shakespeare's time, mattresses were secured of bed frames by ropes. When you pulled on the ropes the mattress tightened, making the bed firmer to sleep on. That's where the phrase, "goodnight, sleep tight" came from.

2. The sentence "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" uses every letter in the alphabet. It was developed by Western Union to test telex/twx communications.

3. The Main Library at Indianna University sinks over an inch every year, beacuse when it was built, engineers failed to take into account the weight of all the books that would occupy the building.

4. The term "the whole 9 yards" came from W.W.II fighter pilots in the Pacific. When arming their airplanes on the ground, the .50 caliber machine gun ammo belts measured exactly 27 feet, before being loaded into the fuselage. If the pilots fired all their ammo at a target, it got "the whole 9 yards."

5. The phrase "rule of thumb" is derived from an old English law which stated you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb.

6. The name Jeep came from the abbreviation used in the army for the General Purpose vehicle, GP.

7. The first toilet ever seen on televison was on Leave It To Beaver.

8. It was accepted practice in Babylon, 4,000 years ago that for a month after the wedding, the bride's father would supply his son-in-law with all the mead he could drink. Mead is a honey beer, and because their calendar was lunar based, this period was called the "honey month" or what we know today as the "honeymoon."

9. In English pubs, ale is ordered by pints and quarts. So in old England, when customers got unruly, the bartender would yell at them to mind their own pints and quarts and settle down. It's where we get the phrase "mind your P's and Q's."

10. Many yeas ago in England, pub frequenters had a whistle baked into the rim of handle of their ceramic cups. When they needed a refill, they used to whistle to get some service. "Wet your whistle," is the phrase inspired by this practice.

And now, for the the one you have all been waiting for.

11. In ancent Endland a person could not have sex unless you had consent of the King (unless you were in the Royal Family). When anyone wanted to have a baby, they got consent of the King and the King gave them a placard that they hung on their door while they were having sex. The placard had F.U.C.K. on it (Fornication Under Consent of the King).

Whether these are true or not, I don't know, but at least they are interesting.


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"The way to get over someone is to get under someone else" - The Cherry Poppin' Daddies

I stopped being sexist because bitches hate that shit.

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Registered: Jan 2001
Location: library
Posts: 19584

I am sure I have seen this before, and they're mostly wrong.



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"Ready or not, I'm the illegitimate son of god"

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location: Richmond, VA
Posts: 1353

Originally posted by VKL:
9. In English pubs, ale is ordered by pints and quarts. So in old England, when customers got unruly, the bartender would yell at them to mind their own pints and quarts and settle down. It's where we get the phrase "mind your P's and Q's."

actually, the phrase mind your p's and q's comes from the old style of printing. they would lock lead type letters into a frame (called a chase) and the chase was squeezed onto a platen where paper was placed. in order for the print to appear 'right reading' it was locked into the chase in reverse. the letters p and q where referred to as 'devil letters' because they where easily swapped by accident when placing the type into the chase, and the printers where reminded to 'mind their p's and q's' and not put the wrong letter in the print.

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¤¬=(©) .. boOM!!

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: Location Location
Posts: 26420

Yes, these are interesting. I like these things, true or not.

I believe we had a heated discussion some time ago about the true origins of "the whole nine yards". Not sure what version prevailed.

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location:
Posts: 3539

Fornication Under Consent of the King?
I thought it was "For unlawful carnal Knowledge" but when I searched on it, it just gave me a bunch of Van Halen links...ew.. so I guess its this..

fuck

fuck [fuk ] verb (past fucked, past participle fucked, present participle fuck·ing, 3rd person present singular fucks) (taboo)

1. transitive and intransitive verb a taboo term meaning to have sexual intercourse, or have sexual intercourse with a specified person

2. transitive verb a taboo term used like a command, often followed by another word, to express anger, contempt, or rejection

3. transitive verb a taboo term meaning to ruin, botch, or destroy something

4. transitive verb a taboo term meaning to treat somebody unjustly or harshly

noun (taboo)

1. a taboo term for an act of sexual intercourse

2. a taboo term for somebody considered as a sexual partner of a particular quality

3. a taboo term for a person, usually of a specified nature

4. a taboo term for something of little or no value

interjection
a taboo term used without a following word to express exasperation, fear, or surprise or to add emphasis (taboo)


[Early 16th century. Origin uncertain: perhaps from a Scandinavian source, in which case the underlying sense might be "to beat, bang."]


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hehehehehe They bitch at you if you type a curse word in to the msn dictionary.

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location:
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The IU library thing is most likely true, judging from what I saw of the loading dock there.

As for the mead, I think that was Ireland...maybe they got the recipe from Babylon though. I know they practiced the same thing though.

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Deny closure. Honor ambiguity.

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location: baton rouge, la
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Word History: The obscenity fuck is a very old word, first recorded in English in the 15th century. Age has not dimmed its shock value, even though it is seen in print much more often now than in the past. Its first known occurrence, in a poem entitled “Flen flyys” written sometime before 1500, is in code, illustrating the unacceptability of the word even then. The poem, composed in a mixture of Latin and English, satirizes the Carmelite friars of Cambridge, England, with the title taken from the first words of the poem, “Flen, flyys, and freris,” that is, “fleas, flies, and friars.” The line that contains fuck reads “Non sunt in coeli, quia gxddbov xxkxzt pg ifmk.” The Latin words “Non sunt in coeli, quia” mean “they [the friars] are not in heaven, since.” The code “gxddbov xxkxzt pg ifmk” is easily broken by simply writing the preceding letter in the alphabet. As we decode, we must watch for differences in the alphabet and in spelling between then and now. For g write f; for x, v (used for u and v); d, c; b, a; o, n; v, t; xx, vv (which equals w); k, i; x, v; z, y; t, s; p, o; g, f; i, h; f, e; m, l; and for k, i. This yields “fvccant [a fake Latin form] vvivys of heli.” The whole thus reads in translation: “They are not in heaven because they fuck wives of Ely [a town near Cambridge].”
www.dictionary.com

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you've been drinking my blood, well i've been licking your wounds

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Registered: Oct 2000
Location: Dumbfucksville!
Posts: 12164

Now that we know the origin of fuck, I'm wondering what the origin or "Go" and "Yourselves!" is.

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Registered: Jan 2001
Location: library
Posts: 19584

"Go" - Neanderthal word for saber tooth tiger, shouted when ever one was spotted stalking the tribe.

"yourselves" - has it's roots in momspeak, originally spelled "your shelves" I don't really know how that fits with Fuck and Go but hey... it's not my name.

-m


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"Ready or not, I'm the illegitimate son of god"

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Registered: Oct 2000
Location: Dumbfucksville!
Posts: 12164

quote:

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Originally posted by Mordecai:
"Go" - Neanderthal word for saber tooth tiger, shouted when ever one was spotted stalking the tribe.

"yourselves" - has it's roots in momspeak, originally spelled "your shelves" I don't really know how that fits with Fuck and Go but hey... it's not my name.

-m

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Registered: Mar 2001
Location: Monmouth
Posts: 13

Merry christmas VKL.... So, How are things in your part of Oregon!?!

I hope all is interesting!

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