[Ads-l] TF

[Jesse Sheidlower]

Thanks, Garson. This is useful, but I was primarily looking for _TF_ as an abbreviation for _the fuck_ as a set (interjectional) phrase in its own right, not as an abbreviation for one of the elements of _[wh-word] the fuck_.

But I haven't decided how I would ultimately handle this. _the fuck_ is itself pretty difficult, and I'm not sure I'm happy with its treatment.

Jesse Sheidlower

On Fri, Oct 03, 2025 at 01:52:27PM -0400, ADSGarson O'Toole wrote:
> Jesse has an entry in "The F-Word" (Fourth Edition) for the
> interjection WTF which lists a 1974 citation for WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT
> and a 1979 citation for WTF. Perhaps TF emerged in the 1970s.
> 
> I searched for the phrase "who TF" in the Google Usenet archive as a
> preliminary probe and found a 1986 citation. There is plenty of room
> for antedating.
> 
> Usenet Newsgroup: net.lang.c
> Subject: Who T.F. Cares?
> Timestamp: Mar 3, 1986, 11:18:45 AM
> Poster: JAMES COTTRELL
> https://groups.google.com/g/net.lang.c/c/aaCp5PnSJNI/m/-XuhuW3pnZoJ
> 
> [Begin excerpt]
> Who T.F. Cares? I gotta be me! Go suck eggs.
> [End excerpt]
> 
> Garson
> 
> On Fri, Oct 3, 2025 at 1:05 PM Jesse Sheidlower <jester at panix.com> wrote:
> >
> > And writing as well....
> >
> > I've been tracking _TF_ for a couple of years. I would have put it into ed. 4, but I couldn't get around to aggressively searching for it, so I left it out. I used it in a recent conference paper as a specific example of something that was hard to research.
> >
> > Jesse Sheidlower
> >
> > On Fri, Oct 03, 2025 at 12:50:32PM -0400, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> > > 'WTF.'
> > >
> > > 2025 Quora.com:  You know what, I will actually push back on that BS. TF
> > > are you talking about?
> > >
> > > The "what" is often dropped in speech.
> > >
> > > JL
> > >
> > > --
> > > "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
> > >
> > > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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