Ever had one of those days when you’re just, like, ‘F%#K!!!’?
The word that has become part of most Americans’ vocabulary is popping up in contexts where swearing used to be verboten.
That includes the White House lawn on Tuesday where Donald Trump dropped an F-bomb that echoed around the world.
‘We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don’t know what the f**k they’re doing, the president said about Iran and Israel, venting his frustration with both countries for bombing each other in the hours after he prematurely announced a ceasefire in their 12-day war.
Although Trump is the first U.S. president to say ‘f**k’ to reporters on live TV, he has plenty of company among public figures – including comedians, rappers, and social media influencers – who have normalized the word.
Joy Reid and Charles Barkley recently made headlines for saying the word on live news and sports broadcasts.
Even Paris Hilton’s two-year-old son, Phoenix went viral for repeating it several times in a home video.
In a nation bitterly divided by politics, rattled by Trump’s much-debated decision to bomb Iranian nuclear sites last weekend, and sweating through this week’s heatwave, one linguistic expert says it’s time to stop clutching our pearls over language that has become common parlance.
President Donald Trump went on a foul-mouthed tirade on the South Lawn early Tuesday morning saying that both Israel and Iran violated the ceasefire deal that he announced Monday evening
Why, he asks, should we feign surprise over politicians and other public figures uttering a word that, for more than 20 years now, polls have found most Americans use in conversation?
‘”F**k” is here to stay,’ Professor Timothy Jay, who has researched the science of swearing for more than 40 years, tells DailyMail.com.
‘To pretend otherwise seems out of touch with reality.’
WHERE THE F%#K DID IT COME FROM?
Etymologists are quick to debunk a popular myth that the f-word derives from a British royal law under which commoners needed to post a ‘F.*.*.K.’ sign – an acronym for ‘Fornication Under Consent of the King’ – on their doors in order to have sex.
Although there is some disagreement in academic circles, most scholars believe the word instead has roots in Germanic languages.
The German ‘ficken’ and the Dutch ‘fokken’ mean to copulate and to breed, respectively.
The word is believed to have first appeared in English between the 14th and 15th centuries to mean sexual intercourse, and to have morphed into a derogatory synonym for, say, ‘screw’ as both a noun and a verb in the 16th century.
The f-word is believed to have first appeared in English between the 14th and 15th centuries but its meaning has evolved over time
It took on taboo status in the late 1800s when it came to connote casual sex frowned upon in the buttoned-up, morally strict Victorian Era. And it gained linguistic legitimacy in 1966 when Penguin became the first publisher to include it in an English dictionary.
Literally and figuratively a four-letter-word, f**k can be described both as a curse, meaning an expression wishing violence or harm on someone, and as a swear word, one considered profane or offensive to some people.
Meanwhile, it has over the decades made its way into all kinds of acronyms.
Military terms such as SNAFU (Situation Normal: All F**ked Up) and FUBAR (F**ked Up Beyond All Recognition), for example, were coined among soldiers in World War II.
And the letter ‘f’ has become a common component in internet shorthand such as the faux directive ‘STFU’ for ‘shut the f**k up,’ the exclamation ‘OMFG’ for ‘oh my f**king god,’ and perhaps the two most existential questions put forth by English-language texters – ‘WTF?’ meaning ‘what the f**k?’ and ‘WTAF?’ meaning ‘what the actual f***?’ for emphasis.
Although moralists have come up with alternatives – effing, farking, flipping, fracking, freaking, frigging, fricking and fudge – f-word purists say those words don’t scratch the same itch as the original.
A century ago, the word f**k, words for female body parts, along with anti-religious words like damn, hell, god, and Jesus, were considered the most indecent words of all.
Today, studies show that, at least in the U.S., the f-word ranks behind slurs for racial, ethnic, religious, and sexual identity groups in terms of offensiveness.
‘Swear words change over time,’ says Jay, 75, a professor emeritus of psychology at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts.
‘When I was in high school, we had dress codes and acceptable ways of eating and acting in public that most people now don’t worry about anymore.’
Grammarians note that the f-word has taken on an especially flexible role in the English language, functioning not only as a transitive and intransitive verb, but also as a noun, adjective, adverb, and interjection.
A celebrated testament of its many uses and meanings – and also of its expressiveness and, some might say, poetry – came in the fourth episode of the first season of HBO’s The Wire, considered one of the greatest scenes in television history.
PRESIDENTIAL PROFANITY
Colorful language is nothing new in politics, including among presidents.
Andrew Jackson had a parrot who reportedly repeated his swear words during his 1845 funeral service. Harry Truman once referred to General Douglas MacArthur as ‘a dumb son of a b***h.’
Lyndon Johnson – remembered as by far the country’s most vulgar commander-in-chief – once referred to his wife, Lady Bird, as ‘the best piece of a** I ever had.’
This isn’t Trump’s first slip of the tongue. In hot mic moment in 2020, he was heard dropping the F-bomb after finding an ink stain on his shirt moments before his Oval Office address on the coronavirus pandemic
Vulgarity has always been a signature part of Trump’s schtick. His first presidential run was almost derailed by a now infamous leaked recording of his crude comments about woman during an Access Hollywood bus ride with host Billy Bush in 2005
Johnson’s successor, Richard Nixon was a regular user of racist, homophobic and anti-Semitic slurs.
Tricky Dick became notorious for recording nearly every conversation he had in office.
Once those recordings were made public and transcribed, they were filled with expletive-deleted redactions.
In a precursor to Trump’s comments on Tuesday, Jimmy Carter was reported to have said, ‘F**k the Shah’ in response to pressure to allow the deposed Iranian leader into the U.S.
His successor, Ronald Reagan, famously pounded his fist in anger at Canada’s prime minister, saying, ‘God damn it, Pierre.’
This century, George W. Bush described New York Times reporter Adam Clymer as ‘a major a**h**e.’
His vice president, Dick Cheney, told Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy to ‘Go f**k yourself’ on the same day in 2004 that the Senate passed the Defense of Decency Act.
Barack Obama described Kanye West as a ‘jackass’ and Joe Biden was caught on a hot mic calling Fox News reporter Peter Doocy ‘a stupid son of a b***h.’
President Richard Nixon was a regular user of racist, homophobic and anti-Semitic slurs and his recorded conversations in office were filled with expletive-deleted redactions
President George W. Bush described New York Times reporter Adam Clymer as ‘a major a**h**e’
Trump became the first president to use the f-word on television in 2020 when preparing to speak to the nation from the Oval Office about the country’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.
‘Oh f**k,’ he said in a hot mic when realizing he had a pen mark on his shirt.
C-SPAN inadvertently included the comment in its livestream, but edited it out after.
Vulgarity has always been a signature part of Trump’s schtick.
He infamously referred to Haiti and African nations as ‘sh**hole countries.’
He simulated performing oral sex on a malfunctioning microphone at a pre-election rally in November 2024.
And his first election in 2016 was nearly tanked by a leaked recording of his conversation with Access Hollywood host Billy Bush about pushing himself on beautiful women.
‘I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ‘em by the p***y.’
Peter Doocy appeared on Sean Hannity’s program to explain that he had heard directly from Biden who had called him after he insulted him to ‘clear the air’
POWER, PAIN, AND PROFANITY
Coarse language can serve several different purposes, says Jay, the swearing expert.
One is harassment, discrimination and abuse, as he categorizes Trump’s ‘p***y’ comment.
He describes the president as a ‘pejorative swearer’ and ‘master at name-calling and insulting.’
‘He didn’t pioneer bullying. But he has certainly furthered the use of purposely offensive language in our country. That’s the political moment we’re in, and it’s too damn bad,’ he says.
Similarly, he adds, swearing can be a mark of power – ‘a luxury among people unafraid of being fired for doing it.’
He notes that Americans at the top of professional and cultural hierarchies can say what they want with impunity, while people at the bottom don’t enjoy the same latitude.
President Lyndon Johnson – remembered as by far the country’s most vulgar commander-in-chief – once referred to his wife, Lady Bird, as ‘the best piece of a** I ever had’
‘Loose speech can be a sign of wielding power,’ he says.
Although swearing can be a mark of fluency with language and a tool to emphasize a point, it also, conversely, can be indicative of what he calls impoverished or lazy language.
‘People with poor vocabularies tend to swear a lot,’ he says.
Some scientists say swearing may actually be good for you.
Jay, for his part, lauds it as a form of self defense that’s far safer than shooting guns or throwing punches.
‘In my research, some people said that expressing anger and frustration at people abusing them makes them feel better,’ he says.
Other experts see swearing as a form of catharsis, a harmless emotional response that lets off steam and lowers cortisol levels.
British psychologist Richard Stevens argues that swearing increases one’s tolerance for pain.
And in his book, ‘The F-Word,’ writer and slang expert Jesse Sheidlower asserts: ‘F**k, is one of the few words in the English language with true medicinal qualities.’
Jay’s read on Trump is that he swears partly as a political strategy – a way to connect with average Americans and convince them of his authenticity.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt espouses that theory when asked about his profanity.
‘One of the things the American people love the most about this president is he often says what they were thinking but lack the courage to say themselves,’ she has said.
Jay also sees Trump’s language as the mark of an emotional and at times impetuous leader who at times lacks a reliable edit button and sense of self-control.
He describes the president’s F-bomb on Tuesday as an unconscious response to the chaos of the Middle East conflict.
As he sees it, Trump broke from presidential norms on Tuesday less through his word choice than through his obvious stress over a high-stakes foreign-policy situation.
Psychologically, he adds, it’s no coincidence that the president dropped the F-bomb in the hours after he prematurely announced a ceasefire between Iran and Israel and asserted, along with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, that the three nuclear sites he unilaterally decided to bomb in Iran ‘obliterated’ that country’s nuclear facilities.
The targets of Trump’s frustration was Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
Officials familiar with a classified intelligence report said Tuesday that the bunker-buster bombs that Trump ordered in the attacks sealed entrances to two of the three targets but did not collapse their underground structures.
The report also showed that much of Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium was moved before the strikes, indicating that Iran’s nuclear program has been set back only by a few months, not indefinitely as Trump and his circle claimed.
By saying those countries ‘don’t know what the f**k they’re doing,’ Jays says Trump’s subliminal message is really that he doesn’t know what the f**k they’re doing.
If the president knew, he adds, he would say so.
‘What became clear is that he doesn’t know, and the people around him don’t understand the complexities.
‘It’s a sign that he has as little clue about what’s going on as the rest of us, even though he has more information than we do,’ says Jay.
As he tells it: ‘You could see the confusion in his face and hear it in his words.’
And, he adds: ‘it’s what’s so unpresidential, so frightening about this moment.’
