Re: Re: F**king-A

[Mark A Mandel]

On Wed, 15 Jan 2003 RonButters at AOL.COM wrote:

#In a message dated 1/14/03 8:02:15 PM, sclements at NEO.RR.COM writes:

#> In "The F Word" by Jesse Sheidlower,
#> "Fucking A" was certainly in use in WWII.  But those "60+" NE'ders weren't
#> around in WWII to know that, were they?  They probably associate the two
#> because Flying A gasoline was so prevalent? in NE.

#I always thought this was "Fuck An A" or "Fuck A Nay"--I never in my life
#heard a velar nasal here, always an alveolar nasal.

Neither did I... and I never expected to hear a velar nasal there.
Relevant points:
 1. "-in'" was thoroughly established as a colloquial alternate to
"-ing".
 2. This was a fixed expression, so one said it as one heard it. "Yer
fucking A!" with a velar would have been as hypercorrectively or
miscorrectively wrong (though not as blatantly so) as later on *"Tell it
as it is!" for "Tell it like it is!"
 3. / k @ ng / would have required either a release and reforming of the
velar closure, or a syllabic nasal with nasal release, either of which
(IMO) would have been less consistent with the forceful way in which I
always heard this pronounced than / k I n / would.

#The full phrase from the 1950s Iowa high school I attended was
#"Fuck-an-A John!" This meant about what "Right on!" meant in the
#1970s, and translates roughly into what I hear as "Damn Straight"
#today.

Somewhat different full form with the same sense.

-- Mark A. Mandel