The F-Word

Book excerpt: A masterfully updated edition of The F-Word which renders a comprehensive portrait of English's most notorious and colorful word. No word has generated more uses, more creative euphemisms, and more strong opinions than fuck. Jesse Sheidlower's historical dictionary, now in print for over 25 years, charts the uses of fuck and its many permutations, from absofuckinglutely to zipless fuck. It illustrates every sense of every entry with quotations, from the earliest that can be found to a recent example, showing exactly how the word has been used throughout history. This new edition is not just a minor update but a comprehensive revision of Sheidlower's groundbreaking text for the internet age. Major new discoveries push back the known history of fuck by almost two hundred years. Sheidlower also considers rapidly changing attitudes towards the use of fuck in public discourse. The volume includes over 1,000 new quotations; over 100 antedatings (earlier examples of existing entries, improving our understanding of the word's development); and many dozens of new entries, including high-profile recent uses such as AF 'as fuck', fuckboi, and the group of expressions of the sort to give no fucks or zero fucks given.