I am so fucked

[Jesse Sheidlower]

On Thu, Apr 01, 2004 at 04:57:59PM -0500, Joseph Nardoni wrote:
> I just read a story where one of the characters says "I'm so fucked."  I am
> teaching on the East Coast and I was raised on the West Coast, and I haven't
> heard this exact phraseology before and am wondering if anyone has some
> information for when and where this use of the f-word has its origins, if it is even
> distinct enough in connotations to have its own source.  Thanks

I'm not sure what sense this is supposed to be in. If the character
means "I'm in deep trouble," then there are examples of this (in
the same adjectival-ish use) in The F-Word going back to around
1930. I suppose with the inclusion of the "so" (which we've discussed
at length on this list) we'd have to regard it as a real adjective, as
opposed to something more ambiguous in some predicative construction
(Larry and Arnold will probably jump in to set me straight here), and
should be included under _fucked_ adj. The "so" is late '80s, say,
and this would require one to read "fucked" as an absolute, which I
do.

If the character means "I'm very drunk" or "I'm very tired", these
are more recent (1960s-1970s, say), but the "so" is a regular "so",
not the GenX "so".

HTH.

Jesse Sheidlower