"Plough with the favorite heifer", 1749

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On 6/6/06, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/6/06, Charles Doyle <cdoyle at uga.edu> wrote:
> >
> > Incidentally, that metaphorical "plow" presents one of those
> > verb +/- preposition cases.  Interpreted literally, the
> > phrase "plow with a heifer" would be taken to mean 'hitch a
> > heifer (rather than an ox) to the plow in order to plow a
> > field'--in contrast with Shakespeare's "plowed HER."  But I
> > suppose we can say (literally or figuratively) either "fuck
> > (somebody)" or "fuck WITH (somebody)."
>
> Can "fuck with" have a literal meaning of "have sex with"? I know of
> only metaphorical ways to use  it, e.g.:
>
> John fucked with Bill's head by fucking with the brother's shit.

Well, you can use it with the literal meaning if you're Kanye West, as
we learned back in December:

http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0512B&L=ADS-L&P=R3671


--Ben Zimmer

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