F*** with = have sex with?

[Joel S. Berson]

To those who think of "fuck" as 1. intr. To copulate. trans. (Rarely
used with female subject.) To copulate with; to have sexual
connection with.", "fuck with" doesn't sound wrong, but mutually participatory.

Joel

At 12/12/2005 03:24 PM, you wrote:
>---------------------- Information from the mail header
>-----------------------
>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM>
>Subject:      Re: F*** with = have sex with?
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Wonderful examples, thank you, Jesse!
>
>They all look like careless slips to me, probably based on analogy to the
>idiom "to have sex with" and the fact that the semantically different idiom
>"to fuck with" exists. Still, though, the 1983 and 2004 examples do not look
>as bad as the others.
>
>My comment about whether "fuck with" is an idiom is simply that I wondered
>whether "fuck with" has another idiomatic meaning, for example, date, which
>would have fit the context of "Gold Digger".
>
>A few people (LH, BL, WG) have mentioned meter in the song being the reason
>for slipping in "with", but I think there is plenty of room to rearrange
>words and still fit it in the meter. I think this is a careless mistake that
>just got by.
>
>"From what I heard she got a baby by Busta
>My best friend say she use to fuck with Usher I dont care what none of y'all
>say I still love her"
>
>For example, "she use to fuck with" -> "she always fucking" or "she use to
>do it with". I think if someone had noticed this that Kayne could have fixed
>it better than me.
>
>I wonder if we'll be seeing this as an example of grammar corruption in the
>newspaper grammar columns...
>
>* * * * *
>Benjamin Barrett
>Baking the World a Better Place
>www.hiroki.us
>* * * * *
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: American Dialect Society
> > [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Jesse Sheidlower
> >
> > On Mon, Dec 12, 2005 at 11:29:32AM -0800, Benjamin Barrett wrote:
> > > For the meaning "have sex with", the verb "to fuck" does not take a
> > > preposition AFAIK.
> > >
> > > It may very well be that "fuck with" is not an idiom here
> > (but perhaps
> > > this use has an idiomatic meaning other than have sex), but
> > this use
> > > with the preposition "with" stymies me. Is it new, a mistake...? It
> > > reminds me of non-native English speakers saying things like "marry
> > > with" or "discuss about".
> >
> > An idiomatic meaning doesn't have to be less frequent than a
> > literal meaning. _to break camp_ 'to pack up one's gear and
> > leave a campsite'
> > is an idiom, but the literal _to break camp_ 'to seriously
> > damage a campsite' probably does not exist [Ben will prove me
> > wrong now]. But if it did exist, it would not be an idiom.
> >
> > Anyway, here are a few examples of _fuck with_ 'copulate
> > with'. I would have typed this in more quickly, but I was
> > busy collapsing with laughter from the Kenneth Koch example:
> >
> > 1983 T. Logan _Hey Cabbie_ 119 Once they were gone, she [sc.
> > a prostitute] stated that I hope that I don't have to fuck
> > with nothing but old men tonight.
> >
> > 2004 A. Dangor _Bitter Fruit_ 37 Soon she went further,
> > started craving those afternoons in the heat..as a substitute
> > for fucking with her boyfriend.