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Fornicating Under Consent of King

literaryreview.co.uk

81 pointspepys81 comments

It's amazing how many people still fall for the 'fuck-as-acronym' myths. I've literally argued with people convinced that FUCK stands for Fornication Under Consent of the King, or (as Van Halen apparently believed) For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge.

No, none of the above. Nope.

Folk etymologies based on acronyms seem to hold a peculiar power over people's imaginations, irrespective of how obviously false they are. I remember as a lad being told that 'news' was so called because it came from the north, east, west and south :eyeroll:

This is a surprisingly to-the-point "acronymisation", though!

> as Van Halen apparently believed

Not that it matters a ton: It was a friend of Sammy Hagar (Ray Mancini) that thought that. The band went with the name as a compromise instead of calling the album "Fuck" as a protest over censorship.

There used to be a great column in alt-weeklies called The Word Detective, that dealt with tons of these I've the years (to insure promptness, port out starboard home, etc).

The author (one Evan Morris) always reminded people that acronyms were extremely rare before about WW2, and so acronym etymologies for old words are virtually always made up (Morris blamed tour guides for keeping them circulating).

> The author (one Evan Morris) always reminded people that acronyms were extremely rare before about WW2

Why is that?

Knowing the more likely etymology, it's a little awkward when I see the billboards for a dentist in my area named Dr. Ficker.

Speaking of misread signs, there's a Chinese restaurant on San Vicente in Los Angeles named Hunan Taste. More than one person has mistaken that first n for an m.

fick is German for fuck

In Southern California there was brand new restaurant with a very expensive neon sign called “Thai Porn”

A week later a new equally expensive sign was being installed with the less provocative “Thai Food”

Hunan is a province of China known for delicious and incredibly spicy food.

Yes, I'm somehow¹ more aware of these things than most Americans. It's mostly a typographical problem. The lettering choice on the sign tends to make it easy to see an n as an m. Other restaurants offering Hunan cuisine don't seem to elicit the same reaction anywhere near as much (or maybe it's just Hunan Taste's location at a well-trafficked intersection).

1. My brain is full of all sorts of random knowledge with no good explanation for how it got there, like names of Chinese provinces or how to conjugate French verbs.

spicy as in "hot" or as in "full of spices (flavours)"?

And disappointed when they saw the menu had nary a single human dish.

A city I used to live in has a Hilfiker Ln, named for the family that has lived at the end of that street, which is on a hill, for over 150 years. I've always wondered if that was coincidence or not.

I've heard that one for "naff", allegedly from "not available for f--", which is probably bogus but the etymology is very unclear: https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,,-1648,0...

The suggestion that it comes from Polari is far more interesting, as Polari was incorporated into the great British tradition of using innuendo to get past unimaginative censoriousness. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_and_Sandy

A propos of Polari, when I mentioned to someone who used the word "carsey" (often spelt "khazi") that it was gay slang, ultimately derived from Latin "casa" meaning cottage, he insisted that no, it wasn't, and that it came from an Indian language. I double-checked this with a native Hindi speaker who couldn't think of any Hindi cognates but I couldn't get him to change his mind.

India has many languages other than Hindi.

A similarly spelled word comes from Urdu for example https://www.etymonline.com/word/khaki

That might conceivably explain the "khazi" spelling but its meaning is unrelated and in any case it isn't the derivation of the word "carsey". See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polari

Sure, I just meant you can’t rule out the theory because you talked to a Hindi speaker.

I had to double-check the date of the publication of the article: August 2021. And in this day and age the author found the time and patience to write an article on profanities with exactly 0 profanities, instead referring to them by circumlocutions. The joy of writing has not completely left the world of journalism, then (even literary journalism, I guess?). I'm moved almost to tears.

> the word whose usage is considered so offensive that it has caused the decline of its unfortunate near-homophone ‘niggardly’

That's not exactly a unique phenomenon. For example, it's how "rabbit" replaced "coney".

The one that gets to me is that the anglosphere is still calling a fairly common crop [cooking product] “rapeseed [oil]”.

And why is that etymologically connected to the latin for ‘turnip’? This seems as strange now as the fact “mincemeat” (no space) in mince pies is vegetarian (the answer: because “meat” used to mean any food not just animal flesh, but it’s still strange to see that today).

Rapeseed oil is usually referred to as canola oil these days.

I've only ever heard Americans refer to it as canola oil. In the UK and Ireland, it's definitely rapeseed

Canola refers to a specific process invented in Canada, which would explain its prevalence in North America but not Europe.

In the US, maybe. In the UK it's usually called what it is, or the euphemism "vegetable oil". Often next to each other on the shelf.

Often vegetable oil can mean cottonseed out which is to be avoided due to heavy pesticide use on the crops. Do they say anyhow.

I thought that was Canadians calling it Canadian oil.

While you're right about the change in meaning of "meat", mincemeat did actually contain meat, the kind with four legs, well into the 19th century.

And of course it still does, in a way - suet.

It's also why (among other reasons) the UK peerage doesn't have "Counts." It uses the old Anglo-Saxon "Earl" for county-level peers even though the Norman system largely displaced the Anglo-Saxon system after the conquest. Curiously though, the wives of earls are countesses.

The jarls still held a lot of land, especially in the north, even after the southern kingdoms changed hands. Medieval feudalism was never a simple one-party dictatorship. Balance of local power probably has more to do with the propagation of nomenclature than simply having a new guy in a castle several days' journey away from your village.

Yes, that's what I meant by "among other reasons"—it was a lazy hedge in anticipation of your response.

Which is funny because coney used to be pronounced more like cunny and was deliberately pronounced coney to get away from the vulgar associations.

My 2c as a catalan speaker. Apparently cunt is related to the latin "cunnus" (wedge). We also have a vulgar word related to cunnus for vagina, "cony". Its use is not as offensive as cunt, but it is up there with "puta" (whore) as the worst things you could say to a woman. However "cony" is also used in a sexual context: "Et vull menjar el cony" could be translated to "I want to eat your pussy".

Of course we have other obscene words for vagina. One of them is "conill" (rabbit), which is apparently related to "cunniculus" (burrow). The analogy between the action of the animal when hiding and the sexual act seems clear, but however this one is almost exclusively used in descriptive contexts: "L'hi he vist el conill", "I've seen her pussy".

"Conill" is also used more innocently. A young girl (~4yo) who is playing and running around naked could be affectionately called by female relatives "conillet". "Ai el conillet!" as in "oh, the little rabbit!". The goal here, I believe, seems to be not really shaming her to get dressed, but to make her aware that she is naked.

The animal analogy (?) would be similar to that of beaver, I suppose. But of course no mother would call her naked girl little beaver.

Maybe it's just me, but I find it fascinating how languages converge and diverge, and how we find hilarious and imaginative ways to describe the world around us.

Help out a non English speaker if you can. What vulgar associations ?

EDIT: Thanks, all who responded. I wouldn't have made the connection although I am quite familiar with the 'vulgar' word in question. The phonetic similarity sounds farfetched to me, one ends with a hard consonant, the other with a vowel sound.

Sounds like "cunny" = "cunt".

Responding to your edit:

> EDIT: Thanks, all who responded. I wouldn't have made the connection although I am quite familiar with the 'vulgar' word in question. The phonetic similarity sounds farfetched to me, one ends with a hard consonant, the other with a vowel sound.

It's not that "coney" sounds like "cunt". It doesn't. It's that it sounds like "cunny", which is a diminutive form of "cunt". Just like "Annie" is a diminutive form of "Anne", or "kitty" is a diminutive form of "cat".

Oh I wasn't comparing coney and cunt. To me even cunny and cunt seems quite far apart, admittedly not familiar with the diminutive or adjective form. Thanks all for the education in the colorful English vernacular (I mean that with sincerity, I can well imagine getting into a tough spot by dropping the word 'coney')

I thought it is the adjective form, but diminutive sounds also ok.

The adjective non-diminutive would retain the t

Female genitalia, along the lines of Shakespeare's "Country matters".

Once I realised this, Blur’s ”Country House” took on a whole new meaning …

There's an underground Australian Northern Territory campaign which was rather amusing:

CU in the [state initials].

(Absolutely no worse than the FCUK clothing label, which I just find annoyingly lame - at least it was funny.)

> coney used to be pronounced more like cunny

That's still the only pronunciation I know. Rhymes with, and orthographically identical to, "money". (And "honey".)

and bunny!

Interesting maybe that Coinín (sp?) is rabbit in modern Irish/Gaeilge and is pronounced in the former manner. Presumably it has some indo European roots, that didn’t spread into common English usage.

Rabbits were introduced to Ireland, so the word for them was probably borrowed from English or French.

Yeah, it was borrowed from Anglo-Norman.

Which is about as close to modern English as modern Irish is.

Yep. In fact, depending on which classification scheme of the Indo-European languages you follow, it could be argued it's closer to Irish than it is to English (Italo-Celtic branching). But I was just agreeing that it did come from, essentially, a dialect of French.

Specifically not English I would have thought …

I thought it was still pronounced that way, which may account for certain odd looks directed at me.

"This is the Q train for Coney Island - Stillwell. Thanks for asking."

The other pronunciation diversion I think of is how "teat" is "tit" but is now pronounced "teet".

In Spanish conejo (rhymes with coney) is rabbit. Interesting how we’re still slowly loosing cognates from our shared latin roots.

Edit: I may be assuming an incorrect pronunciation of coney. Even as a native speaker English sucks.

Even in Dutch they use the word konijn, I actually had no idea that "coney" was an English cognate for that word until reading this thread, I love learning these associations as making connections like this really helps in learning new languages.

As an aside, Spain itself was named after rabbits, which I find hilarious: http://www.ctspanish.com/rabbits.htm

> in Dutch they use the word konijn, I actually had no idea that "coney" was an English cognate for that word

This is of limited value in learning English; at least in America, I wouldn't expect the man on the street to know the word at all.

Same here.

I knew about Coney Island but I had never made the connection between Coney and Rabbit, I thought it was just a name.

Curiously there is another Isla Conejo / Rabbit Island near here too.

From Wikipedia:

It may be because when the Dutch people arrived in New Netherland, this island had many rabbits, so they named it 'Konijn Island', which became 'Coney Island', using the archaic term for rabbit in English.

You are; coney in English generally has a long e sound at the end (like saying the letter 'e'), not a long a sound (like saying the letter 'a'), so it wouldn't be the same or rhyme with the first two syllables of conejo (which has the long a sound in the second syllable).

Tangent, but in line with what others have commented, American English tends to pronounce the first syllable with a long o (like saying the letter 'o'), whereas British tends to pronounce it with a long oo sound (like the vowel sound in the the word 'food'). I've never heard it pronounced with a short 'u' sound (an 'uh' sound), but others intimated they either have, or have heard it pronounced close to it, which is interesting.

> conejo (which has the long a sound in the second syllable).

The Spanish word is pronounced more like "koh-neh-hoh" (or [ko'neho] in IPA), no "long a" ([ei] in IPA) there. The English "long vowels" (diphthongs really: a combination of two vowel sounds) would be written with two letters in Spanish (and IPA).

> The English "long vowels" (diphthongs really: a combination of two vowel sounds) would be written with two letters in Spanish (and IPA).

Three out of five are diphthongs. "Long E" is /i/. "Long u" is /u/.

Good clarification. Depending on the variant of English, "long e", "long u" and "long a" may or may not sound like diphthongs. They can be analysed as /ij/ and /uw/. Wikipedia puts them under "potential diphthongs".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diphthong#English https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_phonology#Vowels

https://www.spanishdict.com/translate/conejo

Also, the use of "rooster" in the US instead of "cock" or "cockerel" which is still common in UK/Commonwealth English.

Living near the University of South Carolina (Gamecocks), always tickled my inner twelve year old to see a constant stream of garnet hats with "Cocks" on them.

As a non-English speaker, I am amazed by the fact that people named "Richard" are happy to be called "Dick".

Just in case you don't know, it's rhyming slang that stuck around. Richard -> Rick -> Dick. William -> Will -> Bill.

Yes, I read about the historical aspect a few years ago.

This said, I am still amazed that someone is fine with that (some "Richards" I discussed with presented themselves as "Rich", and some willingly as "Dick")

For anyone who finds words and etymology fascinating, I highly recommend John McWhorter's podcast, Lexicon Valley.

Whilst we're taking and making suggestions, the Online Etymological Dictionary, a true gem of the Internet:

https://www.etymonline.com/

(Donations welcomed and encouraged. No affiliation, just a very satisfied user.)

Searchable from DuckDuckGo with the !ety bang.

Among my most-used. (Along with !w and !hn)

I've really enjoyed the odd essay/opinion piece and Teaching Company lecture series by McWhorter. I've heard people rave about the podcast, so I gave it a go.

I felt badly for the fellow, however, after listening to about half an episode of the podcast. It seemed worse than AM talk radio in terms of commercials, which left me with the impression that the guy really needed the money.

That was some time ago, though. I just scanned a recent episode and it looks like there are only four commercial breaks in 40 minutes which is not quite as excessive as I recollected. If that's not something that bothers you, give it a listen.

To be honest I haven't really noticed that much, as I just scrub through all commercials with my players.

I loved History of English, but beware it is not brief.

I do love listening to John McWhorter‘s podcast about language, Lexicon Valley

> Perhaps because this is a book about language’s colloquial use, the Americanisms within seem more noticeable than in other tomes originating on the opposite side of the Atlantic. For example, when discussing the past tense of the verb so elegantly deployed in the lavatories at Trisha’s, McWhorter asserts that the form of the verb that rhymes with ‘bat’ seems affected or ‘arch’. In this country we might associate ‘arch’ with a waspish anecdote by Noël Coward, but not, I think, with tales of self-foulage that feature a particular past participle.

I'm afraid to say that I have literally no idea what word that rhymes with 'bat' is referred to here, nor what is meant by 'arch'! Can anyone help explain this to me (ideally in en-gb!)

Shat, though I notice Americans tend to use shit as both present and past tense.

I struggle to define this use of 'arch'; i would say it applies to speech or writing which says something indirectly, in a clever or playful way. Wiktionary says "knowing, clever, mischievous", and has some quotations [1].

I agree with Butler-Gallie here (not words i thought i would ever write) that there is nothing particularly arch about "shat".

[1] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/arch#Etymology_2

I think it's 'shat' and 'shart'?

I my opinion people who believed this spurious etymology were just dumb. For example why would the king care if you fornicate and if he did why would he grant consent? Unbeliveable.

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