The History of Two “F” Words

When It Comes to Profanity, Humans Love Intimate Bodily Functions

Anyone who has raised or been a toddler knows that there is nothing funnier than a fart. They feel great. They make a novel sound. It doesn’t matter whether you’re young, old, a genius, or mentally delayed, the sound of a fart communicates something universal. It’s an experience that everyone has had but few talk about. It may be a globally inclusive body function, but like all words about “private” activities, it is strangely taboo. Although not considered the worst profanity, which is a term reserved for “fuck” and “cunt,” it’s no surprise that it is the oldest swear word in the English language.

FART

When I say “fart,” of course I don’t mean fart. That’s modern English. I mean “feortan” in old English and “pedere” in Latin. The proto-Indo-European root “perd” that they all descend from expresses the sentiment eloquently. Regardless of how it’s spelled or how it sounds, they all mean “to break wind loudly.” Good luck finding a language that doesn’t have a word for it because everybody farts.

Given that every human and animal throughout history has farted at least once, it follows that humans have given the pleasurable, but embarrassing, biological action-specific names, even before spoken words were translated into visual symbols and letters. Sometime during the mid-13^th century, the work of an anonymous oral tradition storyteller introduced the word to the history of written language. How long before this it had been on the lips of people is a mystery, but in 1503's “Sumer Is Icumen In,” a Middle English poet observed that one sign of summer was the sound of “bucke uertep.” In otherwise, “buck farts.” About a century later, Geoffrey Chaucer included references to farting in people’s faces in the stories “The Miller’s Tale” and “The Summoner’s Tale,” both found in the Canterbury Tales.

Hundreds of years later, Samuel Johnson included the word “fart” in his Dictionary of the English Language and used poems by Jonathan Swift and Sir John Suckling to reinforce its legitimacy. Not long after, while living in France, Benjamin Franklin wrote a satirical essay in favor of the scientific study of flatulence. Self-published, it was known by three names. “Fart Proudly,” “A Letter to a Royal Academy About Farting,” and “To the Royal Academy of Farting.”

It has always been an offensively vulgar word, but fart, as a noun or a verb, has never been outright insulting. It can communicate a lack of value (“not worth a fart”), an age elder (“old fart”), it can be paired with a descriptor word (“boring fart”), and, if an understanding between the people involved exists, even a term of affection (“hey, ya old fart!”) or an expression of humility (“I know I’m just an old fart, but...)

Things changed for the word “fart” during the 1900s. Suddenly it went from being a mildly offensive, kinda gross word that made children giggle to being a censored word that no one needed to know existed. Authors including Thomas Wolfe were told to remove the word from their works or not be published. Because of censorship, the literary world was denied the opportunity to mull around what “a fizzing and sulfuric fart” might sound or smell like in Wolfe’s 1929 novel, Look Homeward, Angel.

FUCK

The English language has long been racist as hell and the words considered vulgar and obscene are but one proof. Words with Germanic roots are much more likely to get a young English speaker’s mouth washed out with soap. Words including “shit” and “fuck” qualify. Less offensive but still inappropriate for polite conversations are words like “damn” and “piss,” which descend from Old French which descends from Latin. So many profane roads lead to Rome, but for maximum impact, it’s the more colorful and evocative words used by the “Anglo-Saxon” settlers who came to call themselves Englisc that have packed a punch for centuries.

It’s Latin that makes awkward moments more socially acceptable. To say “defecate,” “fornicate,” or “copulate” is considered far more polite than saying “Shit, I wanna fuck!” Although their language has been granted social and professional acceptance as a form of modesty harm reduction, ancient Romans enjoyed spouting profanity like everyone else. They even used Latin to do it with! Their favorite topics? Sex and shit, both of which were taboo topics at the time and remain so to this day. They were especially obsessed with male virility. In fact, the word “vir” means “man.”

So, when did “fuck,” one of the most loved and hated words overused in the English language, finally appear on the scene? Not until the 15^th century. Prior to that, the word of choice as “sard.” There’s even a 10th-century Old English translation of the Bible that includes the word. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, in 1503, a Scottish poem became the first piece of writing to include the word. Then, in 1528, an anonymous monk created a copy of Cicero’s De officiis. While doing so, he snarked in the margins, “O d fuckin’ Abbot.”

Neither of these did anything for “fuck’s” popularity. It took another 300 years for the word with uncertain origins to catch on. Until then, in addition to “sard,” there was another competitor for “fuck” to contend with. “Frig” rode the edge of offensiveness. Even today it’s a popular way to swear without swearing. Someone must have been saying “fuck,” though, because in the 18^th century, it became increasingly difficult to find in written form. It wasn’t yet allowed in the Oxford English Dictionary.

By the Victorian era, which presented itself as refined and repressed, the love of profanity was off the chain. Again, sex and shit were on everyone’s minds. Clearly, this could not be allowed to continue! Melissa Mohr, author of Holy Sh*t: A Brief History of Swearing, says that society began to watch its speech in public and in print so much it overcompensated. Suddenly the leg of a chair or the breast of a chicken were ripe for innuendo. Euphemisms became the name of the game when anyone was around, but by 1860, Mohr says that “people were swearing basically the same way that they are now. It rarely made it into the record,” she explains, “but it’s in court cases and pornography.”

Even that had to pale by comparison to the smut talking that became openly possibly during World War I and World War II. Thanks to wartime correspondents who reported exactly what they heard; the civilian world came to know that their beloved warriors loved to swear. They especially loved to say “fuck.”

People tend to be offended when they hear the word “fuck,” especially when it’s directed toward them in an angry tone, Andrea Millwood Hargrove found during a 2000 British study about obscenity that while “fuck” was the third most offensive word to her study participants, it was better than “motherfucker” and “cunt.”

Like all the best profanity, the origins of “cunt” are uncertain. What is known is that in 1250 it was the name of a street in Oxford, England associated with prostitution. The street was known as Gropecunt Lane, although it’s now named Grove Passage or Magpie Lane. Not considered vulgar during the Middle Ages, “cunt” became the height of offense during the 17^th century. It was removed from dictionaries in the 18^th century and became a term of abuse in the 19^th century. On the plus side, it was added back to dictionaries during the 1960s and that’s fucking awesome!