Aug 21st, 2008 at 5:52 pm
Question of the Day
Do people really say “frickin’”? I’ve always been a believer in the view that one should either curse, or else one should not curse. These gosh darn stand-in profanity terms are just silly. Battlestar Galactica gets a pass on “frack” because (a) their use is clever and (b) it’s clear that in the fiction “frack” is a full-bore profanity and not a substitute.
88 Responses to “Question of the Day”
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August 21st, 2008 at 6:00 pm
The word is friggin’ as in:
Matt, you’re a friggin’ New Yorker. You gotta ask?”
August 21st, 2008 at 6:00 pm
My grandparents read my blog. Hence, the occasional “frick” or “frig”.
August 21st, 2008 at 6:02 pm
Personally, I’d prefer the substitute of “flippin’”
August 21st, 2008 at 6:03 pm
Yeah, I use “fudge”, “frik”, “frig”, and “frak”. I completely agree with you w.r.t. the intention being more important than the utterance, but in practice the euphemisms are preferred in polite company.
August 21st, 2008 at 6:04 pm
I say ‘freakin’ or ‘frickin’ all the time, mostly because I’m a big potty mouth and catch myself at the last minute when I’m about to curse in a completely inappropriate situation, such as the office. It just happened this afternoon when I went out to lunch with an old school buddy who’s a rather devout Christian.
August 21st, 2008 at 6:04 pm
Problem is, there are still those that insist on getting offended by certain phoneme combinations. They can then completely ignore cogent arguments and focus on their outrage instead.
Thus, Fricking (I’ve also seen Frigging) works as a proxy for stronger language, while leaving ones main point not subject to accusations of vulgarity.
August 21st, 2008 at 6:07 pm
I prefer freakin’ as my slightly more emphatic synonym for “really”… and I even use it in company that wouldn’t mind cursing. I prefer to hoard my f-bombs so that when I unleash them in righteous fury, people know I mean it.
August 21st, 2008 at 6:09 pm
Ryan, very Chris Claremont. Or should that by “flaming”? Mein gott.
August 21st, 2008 at 6:09 pm
“Carlin’s a friggin’ GEINUS!!”
You can look it up!
August 21st, 2008 at 6:09 pm
What’s wrong with having gradations of intensity?
Once a word becomes wholly separated from any level of profanity – gosh / darn – it becomes worthless except for ironic uses, but frickin’ is a nice synonym for “really” that packs a little punch but doesn’t go the whole fuckin’. Seems useful enough.
August 21st, 2008 at 6:10 pm
You don’t have children, do you?
August 21st, 2008 at 6:10 pm
This comic was obviously meant for you. “If you say a word that isn’t a swear word, but you mean it in the same way, is it still cussing?”
And one other reason Battlestar Galactica gets a pass is that it isn’t on HBO or Showtime, or any other channel that allows real profanity (as defined by the late George Carlin).
August 21st, 2008 at 6:11 pm
BobN: No, I’ve actually heard tons of people use frickin’ — mostly parents around their kids. I’ve also heard lots of people use friggin’ as well, but I’ve always considered it a mild swear (i.e. not child-safe).
I’m with Matt: either curse or don’t, but don’t use stupid sounding, made up stand-ins.
August 21st, 2008 at 6:12 pm
I use freakin’ all the freakin’ time. For example: “Last night’s women’s volleyball final was freakin’ amazing!”
I agree with J.W Hamner that when you overuse swear words you reduce their potency.
August 21st, 2008 at 6:13 pm
Odd that ‘frickin’ is getting the most traffic out of Rogers’ hilariously absurd rant (I suppose that’s the headline that the post picked, so run with it). Other gems that he simultaneously unfurled include:
And, really, the grand finale:
On the latter point, go buy my magnets and I’ll throw some money Obama’s way.
August 21st, 2008 at 6:14 pm
A-fuckin’-men, Matt!
August 21st, 2008 at 6:24 pm
As Lauren Bacall says in My Fellow Americans: “Don’t say “freaking”, Russ. If you have to use the “F” word, go for the gold.” (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117119/quotes)
August 21st, 2008 at 6:27 pm
I use frickin’, freaking, and fucking, all depending upon whichever is aesthetically most pleasing to the situation. I think I just absorbed freaking/frickin’ from all those years of non-profanity entertainment, and each word has a certain character of its own. Also, frickin’ is a nice Dr. Evil homage.
I don’t think I ever use frigging, that just sound silly. I like frack but will not use profanity introduced by BSG. And I can’t stand the use of frelling, which is the same as hanging a sign around your neck saying, “I am the biggest geek ever!”
August 21st, 2008 at 6:28 pm
The cartoon Non-Sequitur has been dealing with this all week, with the girls using old terms such as “balderdash” to avoid being grounded….
August 21st, 2008 at 6:30 pm
Frickin! Arugula! Prisoner of War! William Ayers!
Yeah, this one hit home. Guess no veep announcement today.
As for substitute profanity, I think it evolves naturally when you have children. I once was at a barbecue with a bunch of Baptists missionary tough guys, who sounded just like guys stateside discussing football and what not, except that their strongest swear was “gosh.”
August 21st, 2008 at 6:35 pm
I’ve been dutifully saying “frickin’” ever since my granson’s third word (he lived with us at the time) turned out to be “fuck.”
August 21st, 2008 at 6:36 pm
“Fecking”, in best Father Ted style. “Yer feckin’eedjit.”
August 21st, 2008 at 6:44 pm
holy schmidt
August 21st, 2008 at 6:45 pm
Frickin’/Friggin’/darn have a nice consciously lame quality to them, like something Ned Flanders or Mitt Romney might say when they were really cheesed off. What’s really pathetic is when they’re cut into movies for TV, so you have some badass in a combat zone shouting the cutesy words.
August 21st, 2008 at 6:48 pm
Some people say “shoot” instead of “shit.” They can’t fool me, man. “Shoot” is “shit” with two o’s.
–George Carlin
August 21st, 2008 at 6:48 pm
Do people really say “frickin’”?
Fuck no. Other than Ned Flanders on a bad day.
August 21st, 2008 at 6:51 pm
You’re “frickin’” comment software seems to have rejected my post for using the word F**k.
You’d have to be a fargin’ icehole to say “frickin’” instead of “f**cking”.
August 21st, 2008 at 6:52 pm
Oh. I guess it didn’t. Sorry for all the fucking posts.
August 21st, 2008 at 7:00 pm
I believe the verb is frig, meaning, to masturbate. It is used in this way in contemporary traslations of De Sade.
August 21st, 2008 at 7:03 pm
Do people really say “frickin’”? Fuck no. Other than Ned Flanders on a bad day.
I believe Dr. Evil used it most memorably:
August 21st, 2008 at 7:10 pm
dammit. apparently I’m out of my depth in basic HTML.
August 21st, 2008 at 7:11 pm
Cosign on Father Ted and the use of “Feck.” Stroke of genius, especially when they have to come up with “Fup” to substitute for “feck”.
DRINK! ARSE! FECK! GIRLS!
August 21st, 2008 at 7:13 pm
As a “lay-dee”, it would be a tad unbecoming for me to actually drop the f-bomb every time i say freakin/frickin/frackin. It’s one of those whole double standard things.
August 21st, 2008 at 7:16 pm
The way I handled swearing with my son was this: when he was about four years old, I explained to him that there were certain words that only people who were driving were allowed to use. When he was of driving age, and actually behind the wheel, he could use those words as well…but until then, he couldn’t.
It didn’t work, of course, but I still think it was a pretty good idea.
August 21st, 2008 at 7:27 pm
Norman Mailer’s publisher made him substitute “fug” for “fuck” in The Naked and the Dead. According to legend, Dorothy Parker (or perhaps Talluah Bankhead or her PR man) said, when she met Mailer, “So you’re the young man who can’t spell fuck.”
August 21st, 2008 at 7:31 pm
I almost exclusively use “Gosh,” “darn,” and “Holy Ess” in lieu of their harsher counterparts. Why? Because I think it’s cute and brings a little lightheartedness to a “swearworthy” situation. Any guys (or gals) who think that swearing is unattractive in the opposite sex?
August 21st, 2008 at 7:31 pm
I’m a big fan of “mother pussbucket.” Coined, I believe by Bill Murray.
August 21st, 2008 at 7:32 pm
There seems to be a general lack of awareness here that “frigging” is (or at least began life as) a dirty word for masturbation, not a milder substitute for the word “fucking.” As such, a generation or so ago, it was as just as shocking in polite company as “fucking.”
August 21st, 2008 at 7:36 pm
S. Thomas beat me to it, but frig is no mere substitute swear, it’s an actual world, one that was good enough for James Joyce and ergo good enough for me.
August 21st, 2008 at 7:47 pm
Although usage as such has dropped off, to frig is actually maybe a little dirtier than plain old fuck because it referred to female masturbation.
August 21st, 2008 at 7:47 pm
I say f-ing. Or rather “effing”. I like it because it has about the same about of punch as “fucking” has if you’re the sort of person who says “fucking” all the time.
August 21st, 2008 at 7:49 pm
What’s really pathetic is when they’re cut into movies for TV, so you have some badass in a combat zone shouting the cutesy words.
Alex Cox, the director of Repo Man was the first, I think, to treat the TV edit as an opportunity to play with the task. He gave “melon farmers” to the dubbing suite.
August 21st, 2008 at 7:51 pm
Please note that it is spelled “frak,” the better to remain a four-letter word.
August 21st, 2008 at 7:51 pm
I have 2 swear words: “Balzac” and “Shostakovitch”. Don’t know why I chose those two since I like their work.
August 21st, 2008 at 7:53 pm
It occurs to me that these are my favorites: “You lousy mother-father! You dirty cocker spaniel!”
Must start using these more.
August 21st, 2008 at 8:18 pm
I say frickin’ when I’m at work, mainly because the real f-word is more of a punctuation in my speech than a word.
Its presence in my day-to-day speech also allows me to double-up on “f-words” when I need to make a real exclamation, as in: “Ah shit, I stubbed my fuckin freakin motherfucking toe!”
Was that excessive?
August 21st, 2008 at 8:19 pm
I also like substitute swears–not that I don’t use real swears sometimes, but I agree it is nice to have something in the middle.
August 21st, 2008 at 8:27 pm
One shouldn’t forget Red Dwarf, with its already offcolour quasi-expletive “smeg.”
There was once a novel, whose title I forget, about a country that was vaguely like Canada, except it was the size of Iceland, in the middle of the Atlantic, much more Jewish, and much more left-wing, where people used Axis war criminals names as expletives. That meant that names like “Frick” “Funk” “Sauckel” and “Koch” could be used, as well as the more obscure “Kaltenbrunner” and “Itigaki.”
August 21st, 2008 at 8:28 pm
Do people really say “frickin’”?
I asked my frick-buddy if she had ever heard it, but she told me to frick off.
August 21st, 2008 at 9:29 pm
“Frickin’” should never be used as a swear-word stand-in, ever. If you need to swear only legitimate profanity should be employed.
On the other hand, “frickin’” and such words may be employed for ironic or comedic understatement. If you say “frickin” you should use it when it’s appropriate on its own merits, not because you’re too much of a pussy to say “fuck.”
August 21st, 2008 at 9:31 pm
My best friend’s mom is from Columbia and would always say things like “Who’s going to clean up this effing, shitting, fucking mess.” I loved that. Do what you want.
August 21st, 2008 at 9:42 pm
The thing I love about “frak” is that it shows up the absurdity of the FCC’s “seven words” perfectly. It’s not a euphemism in the same way that “frigging” or “fricking” are. It’s an exact synonym for “fuck”. It’s used as an expletive, as a sexual verb, and in compounds like “motherfrakker”. There’s no possible way to interpret it except as “fuck”. Yet it’s perfectly acceptable to the FCC and the Sci-Fi Channel.
As always, Language Log has an interesting discussion of the subject.
August 21st, 2008 at 9:44 pm
I use freakin’, frickin’, friggin’ and fuckin’, usually to denote degrees of emphasis (more or less in the above order, from least to most vulgar).
Also, though, I use them to introduce a little variety. I’ve noticed that compared to other languages, American english is strikingly uncreative in its cursing. We use ‘fuck’ for every kind of vulgar expression imaginable. The other day I watched the big lebowski with a spanish speaking friend of mine, with the subtitles on. I noticed that in translation, ‘fuck’ as used in that movie becomes 8 or 9 different spanish curses!
August 21st, 2008 at 9:54 pm
If I recall correctly “frickin’” and “friggin’” derive from the Norse fertility Goddess Frigg, and that “friggin’” was indeed at one point legitimate profanity, but somehow came to be thought of as too silly sounding. An etymologist named Anatoly Liberman has written about this (again, if I remember correctly). I’ll go look through his archives to see.
August 21st, 2008 at 9:54 pm
The only person I knew who used freaking was Mark Gruenwald, and he was from Oshkosh Wisconsin.
August 21st, 2008 at 9:58 pm
Ah, this is what Liberman has to say about this subject:
A ten-year old has brought home the word frigging and defends himself against his father’s reprimand by saying that frigging is the same as freaking. How good is the defense? Not bad, all things considered. Numerous F-words, including the ignoble one, mean (as far as their etymology is concerned) “move back and forth.” Some of them for example, flip and flop) have intrusive l. Intrusive r occurs too. Old Engl. frician meant “to dance,” so, in a way, also “move back and forth.” Since Modern Engl. freak, originally “sudden change of fortune,” surfaced in texts only in the 16th century, the connection between it and frician is hard to establish. The other meanings of freak were attested even later; yet they may be part of the larger f-group. Frig has probably always meant “masturbate”; and its reference to movements back and forth need no proof. Frigging was used as a gentler variant of f—ing and remained unprintable until our enlightened age liberated us from both prejudice and sensibility. But it is still a coarse word, and freaking, which sounds like frigging and is therefore felt to be its synonym (especially now that freak out is so common), has become its convenient substitute. The student newspaper at my university has recently wished one of its despondent readers to have freaking good fun. The ten-year old has only the haziest notion of the subject in hand and can be forgiven. How acceptable is the verb verse (from versus, I presume) “play against”? It is probably an invention of some sports journalist. To my conservative taste, it is an ugly verb, though perhaps less ugly than morph “to change.” But English is a language of monosyllables (come, go, sit, lie, doc, prof, Dick, Rick, and the rest), so that verse, a homonym of the already existing noun verse, has a good chance of survival.
August 21st, 2008 at 10:39 pm
I used to curse a lot more when first blogging, but then I pulled way back when I realized it was too easy to do it all the time.
I’m a great fan of the English language in all its variations. While a “fudge” in place of an F-bomb may indeed be cowardly, I would hate to lose all of the various seemingly mild curses that exist beyond Carlin’s Seven Dirty (plus goddamn and hell).
These include crap, bull, dang, darn, rats, jeez, shoot, blast, doggone, poppycock, tarnation, deuce, blazes, thunderation, bloody, bully, dickens, egad, gee-whiz, jiminy, fiddle-faddle, and ye gods. What would Kipling or Penrod be without them?
August 21st, 2008 at 10:41 pm
Ya see that Larry? This is what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps!
August 21st, 2008 at 11:06 pm
I had an ex who liked to say “Jiminy Fucking Christmas”. When I told her Jiminy Christmas was for pious people looking to be exasperated without taking the name of the lord our God in vane, so it was kind of defeating the purpose to say “Jiminy Fucking Christmas”, she had never thought about it before. She actually did rectify the thing and substituted “Jesus Fucking Christ” afterwords.
August 21st, 2008 at 11:09 pm
I say “frickin’” with some frequency. It’s not from an aversion to saying “fucking” – its just that more often a milder word does the trick. Its good for when I’m somewhat pissed off about something, but not genuinely angry.
I like to save “fucking” for when only a full strength swear word will suffice – it seems to have more impact that way.
August 21st, 2008 at 11:09 pm
Problem is, there are still those that insist on getting offended by certain phoneme combinations.
This isn’t a problem at all. The entire point of using those certain phoneme combinations is to add an offensive edge to one’s speech.
August 21st, 2008 at 11:24 pm
My favorite f-word substitute is the Italian fongool.
August 21st, 2008 at 11:30 pm
My favorite f-word substitute is the Italian fongool.
I like the sentiment but you don’t ever want to tell an actual Italian that is actually Italian though.
August 21st, 2008 at 11:50 pm
Dr. Evil: I used to use a PC but it was designed by a frickin’ idiot. Now I use a Mac, allowing me to control the “lasers” on my “death star” with ease. I’m Dr. Evil, and I’m aspiring to take over the world.
http://www.filehurricane.com/media/235
Meanwhile, how many times have I accused Matt of being a “frickin’ idiot”?
The girl in the Terminator series who committed suicide used the work “freaking” several times in the rest room scene with Cameron, obviously as substitutes for the work “fucking” – Fox being a “family network”, heh, heh.
August 22nd, 2008 at 12:08 am
Yes, people really do say “frickin.” It’s a snide comment used by old rich white guys when they’re in mixed company. They say it at the country clubs where the elite in D.C. hang out. They also say it down in Palm Beach, where more old rich guys like Rush Limbaugh can be found. My father used to say it, God rest his soul.
August 22nd, 2008 at 12:30 am
I say “frick” and “frickin’” sometimes (and, while growing up in upstate NY, “frigg” and “friggin’”).
The assumption that people would only use a word that seems related to and sounds like “fucking” as a substitute for “fucking” is overreaching. I never say frickin’ when I mean fucking, or vice versa. They are different words with different connotations.
Perhaps “frick” and variations are relatively new to Matt and/or others, who naturally might assume that they’re watered-down variations of “fuck”. But I grew up with “frick” being much more widely used than, and with nuance of meaning clearly distinct from, “fuck”.
Some might be saying to themselves, “this prude dude just made up a distinction between frick and fuck, because everyone around him was a pussy who wouldn’t say fuck, and he was a dumb kid who didn’t know any different.” Although I’d disagree, I’d also like to engage the argument. We were all dumb kids who didn’t know any different. If some of us are using ‘frick’ and _not_ doing it to substitute for ‘fuck’, but because we think it’s a different word with a different meaning and usage, then it doesn’t much matter whether we came to that crazy notion because of our sheltered youth or not. The use imbues the word with meaning, and if it’s not being used as a substitute for fuck, then it’s not just a substitute for fuck.
I’m telling you frick doesn’t mean fuck. But when I hear (or, as rightly pointed out, read) “What the flippin’ heck?”, it certainly feels like someone’s trying to get past the censors, not express real speech.
But maybe there’s another region where people grew up with those euphemisms reaching their innocent ears, and (not being so innocent as not to know actual swear words) they attributed distinct rules of use and shades of meaning to “flippin’ heck”.
In sum, Matt sounds like a Newspeak advocate here. Accusing people who say “frick” of stand-in profanity is akin to accusing namby-pamby liberals who advocate international engagement of stand-in belligerence.
[Hm. Orwell, McCainiac hawkdom...if only I could work in Nazis, I could Godwin's Law the frick out of this thread!]
August 22nd, 2008 at 1:51 am
One shouldn’t forget Red Dwarf, with its already offcolour quasi-expletive “smeg.”
Which arose partly because the BBC had relaxed its post-9pm swearing guidelines, but not enough to make ‘the originals’ acceptable on a regular basis in that context. (The same applied, slightly later, to Father Ted.) Also because ’smeg’ead’ fits perfectly with the Scouse accent.
August 22nd, 2008 at 2:26 am
Is this the new site for Kevin Drum’s blog?
August 22nd, 2008 at 2:34 am
It’s not a substitute for me, it’s a distinct word with its own connotations. Obviously, in a technical sense, it’s a substitute. But as it’s been used, it’s acquired its own character.
I use it with a particular emphasis on the “ck”—an equivalent emphasis with the original profanity is its strongest, sometimes shocking, usage. This lesser version, with the emphasis, has the feel of very intended crudity, underlining emphasis, without the shocking result of the original.
No word is a precise synonym. It’s rather uninsightful, especially for a writer, to see a word like frickin as merely a substitute for its related profanity. It’s its own word, with its own flavor.
August 22nd, 2008 at 7:21 am
I agree, if you got to cuss,…cuss please don’t give me this friggin crap. Use some brain and come up with a witty way to say something. I swear often enough and when I do I want it mean something. I like flamin’ but don’t associate it with anything else.
August 22nd, 2008 at 8:12 am
Best substitute swearing in a science fiction tv series must go to Firefly, for the alternating between “rutting” and some very elaborate mandarin. BSG was just following their lead.
August 22nd, 2008 at 8:30 am
throw me a FRICKIN bone here…..
(mike meyers, yes?)
August 22nd, 2008 at 8:58 am
It’s much funnier when Dr. Evil uses “frickin’.” It helps convey the over-the-topness of the whole enterprise. It also fits with the scene with Mike Myers and Elizabeth Hurley and the very strategically placed objects.
August 22nd, 2008 at 9:26 am
Yes, I really do say “frickin’.” I attribute it to my mother’s rather strict anti-swearing rules. Frickin’ (or freaking), darn, gosh, and heck are what come out of my mouth naturally… I have to stop and think about it in order to say the “real” versions.
August 22nd, 2008 at 9:37 am
When watching the Joe Calzaghe/Bernard Hopkins fight on HBO I was amused at how Calzaghe’s trainer (who is his father) kept using the word “facking” between rounds, e.g. “throw your facking jab!” At first I thought it was a new euphemism for the f-word. Then it dawned on me that the Calzaghes are from Wales, and what I was hearing was the real deal, pronounced with a Welsh accent.
August 22nd, 2008 at 10:02 am
Grife!
August 22nd, 2008 at 10:34 am
Heck, people write frickin’ songs using it.
August 22nd, 2008 at 2:22 pm
if you have kids sometimes you have to curse, but you don’t want your 2 year old running around saying f)(*)( at the top of their lungs all day.
you need some friends with wives and kids, you are really out of touch on this stuff.
August 22nd, 2008 at 6:44 pm
I kind of like corksogger, which was used in a movie whose name I can’t remember.
August 26th, 2008 at 2:51 pm
I use “flippin’”, as a substitute swear. And “pooh” and “flaming” – but sometimes “Scheisse”. Also “bloody hell”. My dad uses “bloody” as his substitute swear so I guess that’s where that comes from. The “real” F-word is a favorite but I only use that when stressed out. It is the best because it can be used as every part of speech.
And I still use “frell” from years of watching “Farscape”. Oh, and “tralk” from there as well. I sometimes wonder if they followed Ben Browder and Claudia Black onto whichever Stargate they ended up on. Flaming hell, that would have been frelling hilarious.
What’s the Brooklyn Alphabet?
F**in’ A…F**in’ B…F**in’ C…
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