Um, probably not work safe. Language, situations

Your Humble Blogger is not so much enamored of the new superblog Talking Points Café, but that’s where Matt Yglesias has taken his blog, so now and then I go over and read. Recently, he pointed me to a piece at the TPC by Pascal Riche on profanity in English and French. Mr. Riche wonders whether “This faith in the magic of words may also explain why poetry is still very alive in your country.” Leaving aside the question of just how alive poetry is (and I can’t speak to how alive poetry is in France) (Frahnce) (yes, in Frahnce), I think there is something to this sense that Americans believe in magic words. On the other hand, the patterns Mr. Riche observes have a good deal to do with class and with age cohort rather than being broadly American. Of course, this may also have to do with the disagreement in the comments about whether dégueulasse is a profane word, or merely a crude one.

But anyway. The thing that caught my eye in the comments was this one by an anonymous TPM denizon (ah, anonymity again): “By the way, a common error of French speakers is to say, "What are you fucking doing?" which is a direct translation of Qu'est-ce que tu fous? rather than the bizarre but correct, "What the fuck are you doing?"” And it occurred to me to ask what grammatical role is being played by the phrase the fuck in that sentence. It’s not acting as a noun phrase, that’s for sure. It’s an intensifier, but it’s not intensifying the verb are doing or the noun you much less the pronoun what. It’s intensifying the whole sentence, right? And it can work in a variety of ways: how the fuck are you, get the fuck out of here, who the fuck are you, shut the fuck up. And yet not: beat him the fuck up, driving me the fuck crazy, that’s the fuck cold, she’s the fuck hot. And I think there’s a noticeable difference between who’s your fucking friend (why did you bring that loser) and who the fuck’s your friend (why did you bring anybody). I’m not sure if there is a difference between getting something the fuck over with or getting something fucking over with.

Now, I assume this all comes down in a line from what in the devil’s name to what the devil to what the hell to what the fuck. I should add, parenthetically, that in collegiate days, when some of my old compadres used to amuse themselves with creative swearing, it’s possible that somebody would say “what in the name of fuck are you doing”, but that is neither here nor there. The point is that this is a very odd way of speaking, and yet perfectly normal, and (I think) something that native speakers of our generation (or younger) would recognize easily, even if they are not regular speakers of profanity themselves.

As a rule, I think the fuck can be substituted for the hell. That is, in all the above examples, where one of the phrases works, the other works, and where either doesn’t work, neither does. And, in general, the fuck is a notch higher on the hostility/emphasis/informality scale than the hell. So it serves a purpose, particularly as hell has dropped down the list of Dirty Words to the point where in can be said on sitcoms, not just dramas. But, here’s the thing: it doesn’t work with any other Dirty Words, on either side of the spectrum from the F mark. Try it: What the shit are you doing? What the bitch are you doing? What the dick are you doing? What the cunt are you doing? What the piss are you doing? What the ass are you doing? What the balls are you doing? Nope, none of it works at all. Why the fuck not?

I will admit that What the heck are you doing? and What the dickens are you doing? both work, in their way.

I think, by the way, that the Brits are a good deal more flexible in their use of a variety of curse words in a variety of forms. I can, for instance, imagine an Englishman asking “What the arse are you doing”, although it’s still a trifle odd. Still, in England (by my reading of certain works of crime fiction) that water (for swimming) can be fucking cold, or arsing cold, or even cunting cold, while in the good old USA, you have fewer choices. Water can be fucking cold, or damn cold, or possibly sonofabitching cold, although that last is much trickier. Really, given how many words are still Bad Words, there sure aren’t many ways to use them colloquially. When dunked in the water, one can shout “Fuck!” or “Damn!” or “Sonofabitch!” or also “Shit!” or “Hell!” or even “Shitfuck!” or “Fuckshit!” or “Fucking hell!” but not “Ass!” or “Dick!” or “Bastard!” or “Piss!”. Well, and I suppose if you are dunked by somebody, you can call them a dick or a bastard or a cocksucker, but as a description of the dunker, not the experience of being dunked.

You know, just thinking.

chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek,
-Vardibidian.