Gorram and Frack

[Jonathan Lighter]

About twenty or so years ago, DC Comics inroduced the supervillain "Lobo," last survivor of an obliterated planet. He was the last survivor because he obliterated it himself - to be somebody special.

At some early point in the saga, Lobo began muttering about "fragging this" and "fraghging that" and "stupid fraggers," "frag up."  I've never heard anyone actually use these quasi-euphemistic expletives, but a Web search shows they're moving stealthily into American English.

You read it here first.

JL

Dave Wilton <dave at WILTON.NET> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Dave Wilton
Subject: Gorram and Frack
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The discussion of "gorram" (an expletive invented by Joss Whedon for his SF
series "Firefly") during the WOTY nominations caused me to notice another,
similar term this weekend.

On the new "Battlestar Galactica" series the characters use "frack" as an
expletive, as in "Frack me!" While not as inventive as "gorram," "frack" is
simpler and phonetically more abrasive. The term dates to the original 1978
series. Another term on the original series was "felgercarb," meaning,
roughly, shit. "You certainly have a way of cutting through the felgercarb."
Haven't heard that one on the new series yet.

(And if you're an SF fan, I recommend the new Battlestar Galactica. It's
really quite good--orders of magnitude better than the hokey, original '78
series. It's on the Sci-Fi Channel.)

--Dave Wilton
dave at wilton.net
http://www.wilton.net


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