The F-Word (51 page)

JANFU
noun
[
j
oint
a
rmy-
n
avy
f
uck-
u
p; suggested by
SNAFU
]

Military
. a bungled military operation involving the Army and Navy.
Jocular
. [The 1943 and 1944 quotations are euphemistic.]

1943
Time
(Aug. 30) 36: Victory it was, but seldom has a victory been acknowledged with such wry humor. Among the echoing cliffs of Kiska a new word was born: JANFU (“Joint Army-Navy foul-up”).
1944
Newsweek
(Feb. 7) 61:
Janfu
: Joint Army-Navy foul-up…
Jaafu
: Joint Anglo-American foul-up.
1944
in
American Speech
XX 148:
JANFU
. Joint army-navy foulup.
1945
in
Verbatim
XVI (Autumn 1989) 6:
Janfu…
“joint army-navy fxxx up.” A failed amphibious military operation considered badly planned and/or executed.
1946
American Speech
(Feb.)
72: JANFU (Joint Army-Navy FU)…became fairly common in [the Pacific] theater, especially around the time of the Saipan operation.
1993
H. J. Riker
Seals: The Warrior Breed: Silver Star
161: “I knew the whole Navy couldn’t be snafued!” “Looks to me more like a janfu.”

Jesus fuck
interjection

(used to express astonishment, fear, anger, etc.); “Jesus Christ!”

1967
M. Baldwin
Great Cham
147: When he’d opened his mouth to say Cor Jesus Fuck, his mouth had instead said Ooomooolooo.
1974
R. Price
Wanderers
146: She was laying in a pool of diarrhea.… “Jesus fuck! You got it onna mattress! Goddamnit! That’s it! You did it an’ you’re gonna lay in it!”
1983
W. D. Ehrhart
Vietnam to Perkasie
186: “We’re gonna get wasted by our own people,” I thought. “Jesus fuck!”
1988
W. Boyd
New Confessions
425: Oh no, Jesus fuck no!
1993
“J. Le Carré”
Night Manager
xii. 188: “I’m going on down, Mike! I’ll go start the boat, hear me?
Jesus fuck
,” he complained.
1999
C. Brookmyre
One Fine Day in Middle of Night
325: Matt heard Vale fire two rounds from his handgun. It was met by a yelp of “Jesus fuck!”, then followed immediately after that by the sight of an Uzi flying through the air and skidding along the hall amidst the squillion pieces of glass.
2006
I. Welsh
Bedroom Secrets of Master Chefs
289: Jesus fuck almighty…I get a big shock as a stunningly beautiful girl of about nineteen, twenty, appears before me.

jug-fuck
noun Military.

1
. a drinking bout.

1980
Retired U.S. Army sergeant: I first ran across this in a list of Pro Signs given to me after April, 1977. “Let’s go have us a jug fuck!”

2
. a confused or frustrating situation; mess;
CLUSTERFUCK
,
noun
, definition 2.

a
1987
H. Coyle
Team Yankee
116: Not until, and only if, we get this jug fuck unscrewed.
1988
D. Dye
Outrage
10: Until we get out of this Ethiopian jug-fuck, I don’t want to see you any more than six feet away from…your squad.
1992
E. Ruggero
Common Defense
189: The FBI and the CIA, not to mention the German police, are all in on this investigation—what a jug fuck that must be.

jumble-fuck
noun

=
CLUSTERFUCK
,
noun
, definition 1.

1938
“Justinian”
Americana Sexualis
27:
Jumble-Fuck,
n. U.S., low coll.,
ca
20 for
Daisy-Chain
.

LBFM
noun
[
l
ittle
b
rown
f
ucking
m
achine]

Military
. a Southeast Asian woman who is sexually promiscuous, especially a bar girl or a prostitute. [Quotations refer to the Vietnam War.]

1971
Playboy
(Aug.) 203: LBFM’s never come. What’s an LBFM? A little brown fucking machine.
1974
J. Platt
Laotian Fragments
12:
Remember
: The Golden Palace LBFMs in their spangled padded bras saying “Melly Clistmas, GI.”
1985
J. T. Heywood
Taxi Dancer
61: The… Thais—what the airmen called Little Brown Fucking Machines, LBFMs for short.
Ibid.
225: Where’s my LBFM?…Colonel loves LBFMs.
1991
R. Marcinko & J. Weisman
Rogue Warrior
165: No LBFM’s today.
a
1992
T. Wilson
Termite Hill
377: Swede probably thought she was just another LBFM.
1993
C. W. Henderson
Marshalling the Faithful
iii. 58: They seemed to spend every free hour searching for that fresh, young LBFM that had not yet been spoiled by too many hard nights.
2001
S. Bird
Yokota Officers Club
124: Bring back the LBFM with the melons!

mammy-dodger
noun

Black English
. (a partial euphemism for)
MOTHERFUCKER
. Hence
mammy-dodging
adjective
.

1939
in A. Banks
First-Person America
256: Hell yes, mammydodger.
1970
in
Dictionary of American Regional English
(1996) III. 493/2: Why that mammy-dodging potlicker didn’t even know what shoes was till he was twenty-nine.

mammy-jammer
noun

Especially
Black English
. (a partial euphemism for)
MOTHER-FUCKER
, in any sense. Also variants.

1948
J. E. Webb
Four Steps to the Wall
100: I sure nuff show ol’ white boy mammy-dugger how’s feel.
1956
J. Resko
Reprieve
48: The mammy-jammer…puts the rope aroun mah neck.
1962
J. O. Killens
Then We Heard the Thunder
31 [refers to WWII]: I just don’t like the goddamn mama-jabbing Army, that’s all.
Ibid.
32: Now ain’t that a mama-jabber?
Ibid.
195: You fat-ass mother-huncher.
Ibid.
266: We gonna step higher than a mama-jabber.
1963
M. Braly
Shake Him Till He Rattles
97: You know what that dirty mammy-jammer did to me?
1963
L. Cameron
Black Camp
12: Grab your socks, mammyjammers.
1967
A. Baraka
Tales
18: You talking about a lightweight mammy-tapper.
Ibid
. 20: Yeh, mammy-rammer.
1969
H. R. Brown
Die, Nigger, Die
109: I’d bought a rifle, which…was a sweet mama-jammer, too.
1969
C. Gordone
No Place to be Somebody
413: I rassle with light’nin’, put a cap on thunder. Set every mammy-jammer in the graveyard on a wonder.
1971
K. W. Keith
Long Line Rider
75: Hey, Max, this mammyjammer don’t like my cookin’. Y’all oughta have his butt busted.
1972
R. Wilson
Playboy’s Book of Forbidden Words
165:
Mammy-Sucker
In black slang, an insult that is felt to be even more offensive than motherfucker.
1974
U.S. college student: You mama-sticker.
1980
J. McAleer & B. Dickson
Unit Pride
31: You…dirty Yankee mammie-jammer.
1982
B. Downey
Uncle Sam Must be Losing the War
59 [refers to WWII]: What the fuck do we do with three of these mammy-jabbers?
1985
D. Dye
Run Between the Raindrops
279: I’d been outa this mammy-jammer like a fuckin’ shot.
Ibid.
291: We…a lucky bunch of mammy-jammers.
1987
J. Waters
Hairspray
(film) [refers to 1962]: Just to see me, the big mammy-jammer.
1991
In Living Color
(Fox-TV): This is one bad mammy-jammer.
1992
Jerry Springer Show
(syndicated TV series): I’m a bad mammy-jammer…I’m Wonder Woman!

mammy-jamming
adjective

(a partial euphemism for)
MOTHERFUCKING
. Also variants.

1946
M. Mezzrow & B. Wolfe
Really the Blues
105: Those Jim Crow mammyjamming whites.
1958
W. Talsman
Gaudy Image
30: Yeah, some real mammy-lovin’ goddamn cheap tinhorn place.
1969
R. Jessup
Sailor
268: Who! The mammy-rammy
law!
That’s who!
1974
R. Carter
16th Round
55: You must be out of your mammy-jammy mind!
1974
A. Murray
Train Whistle Guitar
117: That ain’t no goddamn mammy-hunching patent leather walk.
1977
E. Bunker
Animal Factory
59: I ain’ no mammy-fuckin’
dawg!
1977
J. Langone
Life at the Bottom
76: Pour the stuff in the trench and it packs hard as a mammy-jammin’ cement load.

maw-dicker
noun

Southwest
. =
MOTHERFUCKER
. Hence
maw-dicking
,
adjective.

1984
A. R. Sample
Racehoss
145 [refers to 1950s]: Why you Gotdam impudent shit-colored mawdicker.
Ibid.
202 [refers to
ca
1960]: I oughta throw yore mawdickin ass in the pisser.

mercy fuck
noun

an act of intercourse engaged in out of pity. Cf.
PITY FUCK
.

1975
I. Macnab
42nd Year of Mrs. Charles Prescott
111: Having a high old time throwing mercy fucks into every cunt who thinks she needs it.
1978
T. Alibrandi
Killshot
174: Consider your work here a mercy fuck.
1981
in
National Lampoon
(Jan. 1982) 22: But let’s not consider this a mercy fuck. There’s no joy in that.
1988
J. Krantz
Till We Meet Again
506: “Please, mister, throw me a mercy fuck”—that was what a man must see when he looked at her.
1996
“Soul Coughing”
4 out of 5
(pop. song): Quantify my luck I need a mercy fuck.
2004
J. Picoult
My Sister’s Keeper
219: Who called Janet for a mercy fuck the night after she dumped you?
2005
Vanity Fair
(Mar.) 222/3: Emily is an angel of death, falling for men.… and sending them off to war with the fondest of farewells, a mercy fuck.

mercy fuck
verb

to engage in a
MERCY FUCK
(with).

1968
Paul Newman in
Playboy
(July) 69: Mercy fucking…would be reserved for spinsters and librarians.
1980
M. Gordon
Company of Women
141: “Who’s this one?”…“One of Robert’s rescuees. He believes in mercy fucking.”
1992
M. Blonsky
American Mythologies
xv. 344: She’s the beautiful American sans superego.… If she has a beer too many, she’ll even mercy fuck you.
2003
Village Voice
(Feb. 9) 135/1: It seems to me that an ex who’s willing to bang you on a business trip might be willing to make a special trip and mercy-fuck you right away.

m.f.
or
em-eff
noun

(a partial euphemism for)
MOTHERFUCKER
.

1953
R. Ellison
Letter
(Apr. 9) in A. Murray & J. F. Callahan
Trading Twelves
(2000) 42: Doc looked at me as though to say “come on, m.f., this ain’t the time to start no shit.”
1959
in R.S. Gold
Jazz Lexicon
209: You go and buy me a tenor saxophone and I’ll play the m-f.
1964
C. Howe
Valley of Fire
190: Being able to call a gook an emm-eff in pig Latin and get away with it.
1965
E. Cleaver
Soul on Ice
58: Why’n’t they kill some of the Uncle-Tomming m.f.s?
1965
in S. Sanchez
We be Word Sorcerers
193: I’m a lucky M.F. to have found you.
1965
in W. King
Black Anthology
304: So I stole the m—f [
sic
].
1966–67
P. Thomas
Down These Mean Streets
236: You poor m.f.
1968
B. Caldwell in G.M. Simmons et al.
Black Culture
213: Let’s get these m.f.’s now!
1970
S. Terkel
Hard Times
407: Today you get a guy in court, [he] don’t like what the judge says, he calls him a
m f,
you know what I mean?
1970
G. Cain
Blueschild Baby
77: A bunch
of dirty white M.F.’s.
1971
in V. Matthews & N. Amdur
My Race be Won
(1974) 246: There’d be a lot of dead “M.F.’s” around.
1971–73
G. Sheehy
Hustling
89: Then in comes this m.f. from Midtown North,
our
precinct.
1974
R. Blount
3 Bricks Shy
159: They say “m-f” worse than a colored person.
1976
G. Kirkham
Signal Zero
63:
Adios,
MF!
1986
B. Clayton & N. M. Elliott
Jazz World
101: I did provoke the fight by calling him an MF.
Ibid.
[refers to 1930s]: Billie [Holiday] called all of her close friends MF.
1987
Newsweek
(Mar. 23) 61: He could stand out on the corner looking sharp as a MF in his Stacy-Adams wingtips and a $100 hat.
1992
Donahue
(NBC-TV): I’m gonna take all you m.f.s with me.
1992
“Prince”
Sexy M.F.
(pop. song title).
1997
Y. Jah & Sister Shah’Keyah
Uprising
: The other day your baby was a “punk, mf, stupid, ignorant so-and-so.” You’ve been telling him that all of his life.
2004
K. Adams
Ex-Girlfriends
42: Life was hard core. No coddling necessary. Her mantra: bring it on, m.f.