F**king-A

[Douglas G. Wilson]

Ron Butters:

>Thinking about it a little more, I remember that the FULL phrase was "You
>fuck an A John!"

I don't think this is the 'full' phrase in general (although it may be in
some milieu); I think the "John" is a nonsense elaboration. By analogy, I
don't think that "F*ck you, Charlie" is the 'full' form of "F*ck you" ...
although "F*ck you, Charlie" has some currency (far more, by Google, than
does "f*ckin' A[,] John") and was immortalized in the "Harvard Lampoon"
about 30 years ago (in the character Charles Ulmer Farley [Chuck U. Farley]).

>... Since "Amen" is not a taboo word, one would expect that there would be
>recorded instances of "Fucking Amen!" ....

Google shows several instances of "f*cking amen" in exactly the correct
sense. These are of course not old enough, but WW II era printed citations
may be expected to be sparse because of the unacceptable F-word.

I can't say exactly why I interpret this "f*ck'n' A" as "f*cking A" rather
than "f*ck an A", but just about everybody else seems to also. Picture
yourself walking down the street and seeing a man coming out of a doorway
muttering "F*ck'n' idiot!" The context is unknown to you. Is he saying
"F*cking idiot!" or is he saying "F*ck an idiot!"? In isolation, knowing
only the phonetics, one perhaps cannot tell, but ....

Also: why abbreviate the "asshole" and not the "f*ck'n'" (which I think is
more strongly taboo usually)? Why wouldn't "F*ck 'n' asshole" > "Eff 'n' A"?

-- Doug Wilson