[Ads-l] fuck them

Benjamin Barrett mail.barretts at GMAIL.COM
Mon Aug 29 20:05:19 UTC 2016


Thank you so much.

The conclusion is that “fuck” in “fuck them” is a different part of speech, named "quasi-verb” and that the structure as a whole is an epithet.

Benjamin Barrett
Formerly of Seattle, WA

> On 29 Aug 2016, at 12:56, Geoffrey Steven Nathan <geoffnathan at WAYNE.EDU> wrote:
> 
> You need to read the classic article
> 
> Dong, Q. P. 1973[1992 reprint] English sentences without overt grammatical subject, published in Studies out in left field, edited by, among others, Arnold of this list. Although it's tongue in cheek, and extremely crude, it also makes a clear syntactic case (using the syntactic argumentation of the time) that these are not imperatives.
> 
> It can be found at
> 
> https://www.google.com/#q=english+sentences+without+overt+grammatical+subject
> 
> and is also still available from Benjamins, who republished it in the nineties.
> I believe Larry has a (pswaydonymish) article in there too.
> 
> Geoff
> 
> Geoffrey S. Nathan
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> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Benjamin Barrett <mail.barretts at GMAIL.COM>
> Sent: Monday, August 29, 2016 3:41 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: fuck them
>     
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Benjamin Barrett <mail.barretts at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      fuck them
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> 
> I always assumed =E2=80=9Cfuck you=E2=80=9D is an imperative, but it=E2=80=
> =99s not clear what is being commanded (unless it means something vague =
> like =E2=80=9Cgo jump in a lake=E2=80=9D), and even more to the point, =
> the form =E2=80=9Cfuck them=E2=80=9D surely cannot be imperative.
> 
> Is this a subjunctive desiderative such as =E2=80=9CMay it rain today!"? =
> I don=E2=80=99t know what else to call these forms.

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