I am so fucked

[Laurence Horn]

At 5:28 PM -0500 4/1/04, Jesse Sheidlower wrote:
>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.

"You seem really fucked".  Yes, it appears to be pretty adjectival.

>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 stoned/high, more generally.  "fucked up" can be used in this
sense as well as the previous, maybe deriving from the previous,
although that's a guess.  I'm pretty sure my son and his friends
(generation Z, maybe?  in their early 20's) would likely use it in
the latter sense.  (Sigh.)

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

agreed

Larry Horn