[Ads-l] TF

[Stephen Goranson]

When I saw the subject line in my mail, my first thought was of the
Testimonium Flavianum, a disputed passage mentioning Jesus by Josephus.
(Spoiler alert: Josephus circa 94 CE, did mention Jesus, but his account
was slightly tweaked later by Christians.)
So, yes, the other TF would be difficult to search.

Stephen
https://ntweblog.blogspot.com/2025/06/what-exactly-did-josephus-write-about.html

On Fri, Oct 3, 2025 at 2:00 PM Jesse Sheidlower <jester at panix.com> wrote:

> 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
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org