Blagojevich’s word: Where the “bleep” did that come from?

In high school and college "fuck" was as much a part of my vocabulary as “dude” and “gross” and plain old “like” (as in, “like, that’s so gross, dude”). Saying “what the fuck” when I was annoyed or “fucking awesome” when I was pleasantly pleased was a bit of a rebellious act, since my home was a no-profanity zone. To me, "fuck" was blue collar, adult, and manly, and since I wanted to be a blue-collar adult man, it’s not so surprising that I loved the word. 

Apparently, Rod Blagojevich loves the word too. In building a case against the Illinois governor on corruption charges, the FBI secretly taped his private conversations. Among the things Rod was heard saying:

I’ve got this thing and it’s fucking golden, and I’m just not giving it up for fuckin’ nothing.

Our recommendation is fire all those fucking people, get ’em the fuck out of there...

Of course all the news networks and FBI spokespersons have replaced “fuck” with “bleep”, in accordance with obscenity laws and decency standards. In other words: "Our recommendation is fire all those bleeping people, get ’em the bleep out of there ... "

Fuck can evoke so many images and emotions to those who use and hear it, it deserves a closer look. Here are a few tidbits from the Online Etymology Dictionary:

>Some of the earliest examples of the word are from Scottish, which suggests a Scandinavian origin, perhaps from a word akin to fukka “copulate” or focka “copulate, strike, push,” and fock “penis.”

>Fuck was outlawed in print in England (by the Obscene Publications Act, 1857) and the U.S. (by the Comstock Act, 1873). The word may have been shunned in print, but it continued in conversation, especially among soldiers during WWI. (Sidenote: snafu, a word that originated in the US Army, stands for Situation Normal All Fucked Up.)

>The legal barriers broke down in the 20th century, with the “Ulysses” decision (U.S., 1933) and “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” (U.S., 1959; U.K., 1960).

>In 1948, the publishers of “The Naked and the Dead” persuaded Norman Mailer to use the euphemism fug instead. When Mailer later was introduced to Dorothy Parker, she greeted him with, “So you’re the man who can’t spell ‘fuck’”

Nowadays I, myself, have less appreciation for the word. It can be a verb, an adjective, an adverb. It can convey feelings of anger, lust, humor, and nonchalance. In having so many different uses, it’s practically useless. Take out fuck from Blagojevich’s quotes and the meaning is the same, as in, I’ve got this thing and it’s fucking golden, and I’m just not giving it up for fuckin’ nothing.

That's all the so very, freakin', fugin' interesting things I have to say.