Let’s Give a Fuck About Fuck

Yes, of course, we’re all known to pepper our speech with an expletive or four, all with the knowledge that swearing isn’t proper — -ah, the sweet taste of Dove bar soap — -and ultimately low-brow. But!

Strong Language, a blog devoted to the lexical semantics of swearing, gives us a scholarly, robust, cool-as-shit deep dive into when and why we swear, where our curses come from, and what, exactly, they mean, so fuck everybody who thinks that swearing is beneath them. For instance, did you know that Henry Miller was probably the first person on record to give a fuck (as opposed to “care a fuck,” the preferred phrase of yore), and it took 39 years for someone to give two fucks, and then 22 more years (thank you, Tori Amos) to up the fucking ante and add a third on for good measure? I mean: fuck!