F**k: An Irreverent History of the F-Word

Surveys of the British population claim that the nation’s favourite words are ‘serendipity’, ‘nincompoop’, and – isn’t this sweet? – ‘love’. But there is another kind of love in this country, which dares not speak its name; and that’s the love for another word with just four letters, but an entirely different meaning. It’s been with us since the Middle Ages, it’s as British as curry and chips, it rolls off the tongue of the average English-speaker with impressive frequency and ease, and it is surely, in our heart of hearts, the Great British Public’s eternal favourite: the expletive known, and treasured, as the F-word.

It’s a word from which I was shielded during my sheltered upbringing in an English country village – only to be shocked into brutal awareness when I moved to a large town. Through my early teens, it was still a word used only by other people. But by the time I was ready to leave school, greet the world, and hit the big city, I was as fluent as any docker or sailor in the land. Since then, the trusty F-word has been my companion in times of jubilation or despair, comfort or stress, endlessly adaptable, permanently relevant, and emotionally supportive in the way that only the truest of friends can be.

As you will see from the pages of this book, the F-word is also the most powerful word in our language, capable of arousing outrage and panic among the greatest in the land. So potent is its force, in fact, that when it explodes unexpectedly, it’s known as the F-bomb, the mortal enemy of live TV and radio presenters around the world. It has inspired poetry and pornography, political protest and potty-mouthed pandemonium, and lots of things that don’t begin with the letter ‘p’. Take your seats, please, for a panoramic 500-year journey through the origins, adventures, and sexual liaisons of Britain’s favourite word. You’ll marvel at its versatility; thrill to its battles with the censors; revel in its unexpected appearances in the most embarrassing places; and, I hope, come away with a richer understanding of what makes that four-letter explosive so appealing, and so all-pervasive. You’ll also learn some new swear-words. And abbreviations. WTF else do you people want?

Scientists – yes, real ones, with ‘professor’ and ‘doctor’ in front of their names – agree that swearing is good for you. Or, at least, it’s good for you when you’re stressed, under physical attack or have someone with ‘professor’ or ‘doctor’ in front of their names telling you to put your hands into icy water and keep them there.

That was the experiment run at Keele University, where Dr Richard Stephens discovered that people who shouted swear-words, notably the F-word, could keep their hands in the killingly cold water for 40 seconds longer than those who were only allowed to say ‘My fingers have just fallen off’. The most effective thing to shout, almost certainly, was: ‘Fuck, that’s cold!’, though ‘Fucking scientists!’ came in a close second.

Over to Dr Stephens for the conclusions inspired by this legalised torture: ‘Used in moderation, swearing can be an effective and readily available short-term pain reliever if, for example, you are in a situation where there is no access to medical care or painkillers. However, if you’re used to swearing all the time, our research suggests you won’t get the same effect.’ Which is bad news for Gordon Ramsay.

Why is this so? ‘Swearing seems to activate deeper parts of the brain more associated with emotions,’ according to Dr Stephens. These areas are different from those that control the normal production of language. As a result, it has been possible for people to suffer a catastrophic brain injury, which has left them unable to carry out a conversation, without impairing their ability to eff and blind like the proverbial supertrooper. (Research is still continuing into what happens in the brain to cause outbursts of uncontrollable swearing among a minority of sufferers from Tourette’s syndrome.)