[Ads-l] LFG and Ben Zimmer

[Mark Mandel]

The composer, singer, author and more Amanda Palmer signs things "afp".
>From an interview, in MTVHive:

>>>>>
Amanda Palmer Is Comfortable Wearing Her Own Blood
09.10.12
Eric Spitznagel

https://web.archive.org/web/20141006103032/http://www.mtvhive.com/2012/09/10/amanda-palmer-interview-theatre-is-evil/

*You sometimes go by the full name Amanda “Fucking” Palmer.*

That’s right, yeah.

*Where’d the “fucking” come from? Did you give yourself that middle name,
or was it given to you?*

A little of both. It happened while I was in Nashville, working on *Who
Killed Amanda Palmer* with Ben (Folds, who produced the album). There was
someone in Ben’s life who was not particularly fond of me, and I guess she
referred to me to Ben as “Amanda Fucking Palmer.”

*Not meaning it as a compliment.*

Not at all. But Ben thought it was funny. He mentioned it to the engineers
in the studio, and they started calling me AFP as a joke. For a while we
even considered using it in the album title.

*I heard you considered calling it That’s Amanda Fucking Palmer to You.*

Yeah, that’s true. Even when we gave up on that title, I kept using the
name. I appropriated it, just like black people appropriate n****r.

*You took the power back.*

I took back the fucking power.

*To paraphrase my mother, when I told her that you sometimes use “Fucking”
as a middle name, “Is that necessary?”*

[*Laughs*.] You know, my mom asks the same thing. And I guess the answer is
no, it’s not necessary. But neither is music, art or life. I don’t think I
ever officially released any music under the moniker. It’s a nickname I use
when I need a little emphasis.
MAM


On Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 4:48 PM Andy Bach <afbach at gmail.com> wrote:

> The strong language blog has a new post on Elizabeth Warren' (from
> Megan.Rapinoe) new slogan "You and Me, LFG"
>
> https://stronglang.wordpress.com/2020/01/30/you-and-me-lfg/#more-7351
> when they wanted an expert opinion:
> "So WTF would you call the “F” in “LFG” as used by Megan Rapinoe, Elizabeth
> Warren, et al.? I asked Ben Zimmer, because I know my fucking limits.
> Here’s his reply:
>
> I’d just call it an intensifier, since it’s the same kind of “fucking” we
> see in “That’s fucking how,” “I fucking know,” etc. (Linguists might also
> call it an emphatic discourse marker.) When it’s inserted into a set
> expression like “let’s go,” it does function a bit like an infix (cf. Lana
> Del Fucking Rey
> <https://stronglang.wordpress.com/2019/09/03/lana-del-fucking-rey/>).
>
>
> --
>
> a
>
> Andy Bach,
> afbach at gmail.com
> 608 658-1890 cell
> 608 261-5738 wk
>
>

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