The F-Word (14 page)

feck
verb

Irish.
(a partial euphemism, in various senses, parts of speech, and derived forms, for)
FUCK
. [Popularized on the
Father Ted
TV series.]

1980
“H. Leonard”
Life
I. 24 Feck off, that’s not yours.
1989
H. Leonard
Out After Dark
: I went on clinging to the wall until old Fanning made feck-off gestures of great savagery.
1993
D. Purcell
Falling for a Dancer
: “Fecker,” said Hazel passionately. “That’s all he is, a fecker. I can’t stand the sight of him.”
1995
P. Boland
Tales from a City Farmyard
: Some little fecker of a kid pinched the bum off me.
1998
M. McDonagh
Beauty Queen of Leenane
(play): Feck!
1999
F. McCourt
’Tis
xvii. 136: He’s over by the coal range with a mug of tea and all he does is smoke cigarettes and cough till he’s weak, clutching at himself and laughing, These feckin’ fags will kill me in the end.
2003
J. Mullaney
We’ll be Back
33: It’s a dangerous path to go down, but what the feck do I know? I’m only a football fan who’s dropped out of the rat race with ill health.

fed up
adjective

In phrase:

fed up, fucked up, and far from home
,
Military
. disgusted, helpless, and far from one’s home. Compare
fucked [up] and far from home
under
FUCK
,
verb
.

1936
E. Partridge
Dictionary of Slang & Unconventional English
269: In the [First World War], a military [catch phrase] ran,
fed up, f**ked up, and far from home.
1977
P. Caputo
Rumor of War
93 [refers to 1965]: The Marines are all in the same state of mind as I, “fed-up, fucked-up, and far from home.”
1979–81
C. Buckley
Steaming to Bamboola
207: “Fucked up, fed up, and far away from home,” he snorted.
1984
E. Partridge
Dictionary of Slang & Unconventional English
(ed. 8) 383:
Fed-up, fucked up, and far from home
…still being used by the WWI Tommies’ soldier-grandsons, 1970s.
1984
A. Burgess
Enderby’s Dark Lady
84: Fed up, fucked up and far from home.
1998
A. Sillitoe
Broken Chariot
98: When the six hundred men were moved from place to place, an exercise of seeming pointlessness, all complained at being fed up, fucked up, and far from home.

ferk
verb

(a partial euphemism for)
FUCK
in various senses and parts of speech. Sometimes
jocular
.

ca
1929
Collection of Sea Songs
43: Perkin you’re shirkin your ferkin.
1945
T. Lea
Peleliu Landing
15: It’s the ferking night time I don’t like, when them little ferkers come sneakin’ into your lap.
1946–51
J. Jones
From Here to Eternity
ch. xxi [refers to
ca
1940]: Ah, what’s the difference? They all the ferkin same. Five cents of one, a nickel of the other.
1965
in G. Legman
New Limerick
4: He jerked ’em, and ferked ’em.
1977
J. Hersey
Walnut Door
56: She raved for several hours, keening most of her threnody not at Macaboy, whom she addressed exclusively as
you ferking shithead
, but at her dear dead daddy.
2007
K. Tout
By Tank
87: Bloody SS. Shit on you, rotten buggers. Shooting our colonel. Why don’t you ferk off back home and shoot bleeding Hitler.

fiddlefuck
verb

to play or fiddle about;
FUCK AROUND
.—usually used with
around
. Also (in 1974 quotation) as
noun
.

1949
W.S. Burroughs
Letter
(Jan. 16) in
Letters of William S. Burroughs
(1993) 35: When his neglect takes the form of deserting her without funds (what money she has did not come from him), and expecting me to take over until such time as he gets tired of fiddle fucking around N.Y. and decides to come down here, it ceases to be a personal matter between him and his wife.
1974
R. Stone
Dog Soldiers
321: Some of you birds think I’m down here to play fiddle fuck around.
1973–77
J. Jones
Whistle
506 [refers to WWII]: It was strange, all right, and he didn’t fiddlefuck around.
1979
J. Hurling
Boomers
84: I’m not going to fiddle-fuck around ’til those pricks come out of the office.
1985
D. Dye
Run Between the Raindrops
192: Can’t fiddle-fuck around on the perimeter.
1990
G. G. Liddy
Monkey Handlers
xix. 322: Better to get ahead than fiddle-fuck along like this.
2002
New Yorker
(July 15) 73/3: She was all reticence and demurrals—no drink, no dinner, no nothing.… The mournful fraülein desired them to stop fiddle-fucking, order dinner or go away.
2008
Guardian
(Feb. 16) (Saturday Comment section) 32/3: But we’ll let an editor fiddlefuck all over with it [
sc.
a novel].

In phrase:

be fiddlefucked
to be damned.

1976
P. Atlee
Last Domino Contract
52: This is Korea’s nuclear reactor one…and I’ll be fiddle-fucked if I understand why it hasn’t fallen down yet.

fiddlefucking
adjective

=
FUCKING
,
adjective
.

1974
P. Roth
My Life as a Man
19: I guaranfuckingtee you gentlemen, not one swingin’ dick will be leavin’ this fiddlefuckin’ area to so much as chew on a nanny goat’s tittie.

fiddler’s fuck
noun

a damn; fuck
noun
, definition 2.a.; in phrase:
not make a fiddler’s fuck
, not make any difference. [The 1932 quotation is euphemistic.]

1932
V. F. Nelson
Prison Days & Nights
25: We could all rot to death, and they wouldn’t give a fiddler’s so-and-so for us.
1961
H. Selby
Room
187: They ain’t worth a fiddlers fuck.
1973
W. Crawford
Stryker
91: I don’t
give a fiddler’s fuck about jurisdictional disputes, ace.
1976
P. Atlee
Last Domino Contract
175: A shamed patriot…ain’t worth a fiddler’s fuck.
1978
H. Selby
Requiem for a Dream
183: Why didn’t make a fiddler’s fuck.
1979
G. Wolff
Duke of Deception
236: I didn’t care a fiddler’s fuck where my father was.
1984
W. J. Caunitz
One Police Plaza
22: I don’t give a fiddler’s fuck what the Forensic boys like.
2000
T. Robbins
Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates
87: You come along on your bleeding errand, oblivious, unmindful, not caring a fiddler’s fuck, and fall into it, just bloody stumble into it, roses and whistles.

fiddly-fuck
noun

=
FIDDLER’S FUCK
.

1973
New York City man, age 25: Do you think I give a fiddly-fuck?
1992
S. King
Dolores Claiborne
(1993) 62: I didn’t know what’d happen to her or who would take care of her, but right then I didn’t care a fiddlyfuck.

In phrase:

play fiddly-fuck
, to fool around.

1964–66
R. Stone
Hall of Mirrors
305: I didn’t come out to play fiddly fuck.
2001
S. King
Dreamcatcher
xiii. 453: We don’t think they will come again, or at least not for awhile. They played fiddly-fuck for half a century before getting this far.
2006
S. King
Lisey’s Story
289: He was coming around and you were still out there playin fiddly-fuck in the shed.

fifteen fucker
noun

Army.
punishment under Article 15 of the Army Code of Conduct.

1981–89
R. Atkinson
Long Gray Line
295: Each of them was reprimanded, fined $300, and given an Article 15—an administrative punishment known within the ranks as a Fifteen Fucker—“for conduct totally unbecoming an officer.”
2004
P. Maslowski
Looking for a Hero
iii. 73: At 6:00 am on May 1 Joe missed reveille formation, resulting in a Fifteen Fucker that sentenced him to forfeit $163 for one month.

FIGMO
[
“ f
uck
i
t,
g
ot
m
y
o
rders,” with variations]
interjection & adjective

Military.
(used as an expression of contempt or dismissal). Also
FUIGMO.
Compare FUJIGMO.
Jocular
.

1962
F. Harvey
Strike Command
101: Everybody in the Air Force is familiar with the expression a man about to ship out to some new duty station gives those about him who have some insane notion that they’ll get some useful work out of him. It is “FIGMO!”…the expression which…[he] delivers at his new duty station…is FIGMO spelled backward, or OMGIF!
1968
J.D. Houston
Between Battles
212: Once he knows [he is scheduled to rotate], he goes FUIGMO—fuck u, I got my orders. At the PX he buys a FUIGMO button.
1969
C. C. Moskos
American Enlisted Man
144: Rather, the attitude is typically, “I’ve done my time, let the others do theirs.” Or, as put in the soldier’s vernacular, he is waiting to make the final entry on his “FIGMO” chart—fuck it, got my orders (to return to the United States).
1969
Current Slang I & II
32:
Figmo
…“forget it, I’ve got my orders.”—Air Force Academy cadets.
1983
J. Groen & D. Groen
Huey
102 [refers to 1971]: Roger and John were among the few remaining…who were not figmo (fuck it, got my orders).
Ibid.
105: You’re figmo…I’ll send them.
2005
D. DeFrain
Salt Palace
viii. 80: I was in Palermo for most of mine. F.I.G.M.O., you know?