F is for Feck, my precious

Because my mother will wash my mouth out with soap if I say the other F word.

From Wikipedia:

Feck (or, in some senses, fek) has several vernacular meanings and variations in Hiberno-English, Scots and Middle English.

Contents   [hide]  1 Modern English 2 Scots and Late Middle English 3 Debate about the word's level of offensiveness 4 Other uses in popular culture 5 References 6 Sources 7 See also

[edit]Modern English

• Verb meaning 'to steal' (e.g. 'They had fecked cash out of the rector's room.' ^[1])^[2]

[edit]Scots and Late Middle English

Feck (or fek) is a form of effeck, which is in turn the Scots form of effect. However, this Scots noun has additional significance:

1. Efficacy; force; value; return
2. Amount; quantity (or a large amount/quantity)
3. The greater or larger part (when used with a definite article)

From the first sense we derive feckless, meaning witless, weak or ineffective; worthless; irresponsible; indifferent; lazy. Feckless remains a part of the Modern English and Scottish English lexicons; it appears in a number of Scottishadages:

"Feckless folk are aye fain o ane anither."

"Feckless fools should keep canny tongues."

In his 1881 short story Thrawn Janet, Robert Louis Stevenson invokes the second sense of feck as cited above:

"He had a feck o' books wi' him—mair than had ever been seen before in a' that presbytery..."

Robert Burns uses the third sense of feck in the final stanza of his 1792 poem "Kellyburn Braes":

I hae been a Devil the feck o' my life,

Hey, and the rue grows bonie wi' thyme;

"But ne'er was in hell till I met wi' a wife,"

And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime

[edit]Debate about the word's level of offensiveness

Magners Irish Cider have received complaints relating to an advert in which a man tells bees to "feck off": members of the public were concerned that young children could be badly influenced by seeing this advert. Magners claimed that the "feck off" mention in the advert was a "mild rebuff" to the bees, rather than an expletive. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has ruled that the poster is suitable for display.^[3]

In a 1998 interview on Nickelodeon, Irish girl group B*Witched landed in hot water when a viewer made a complaint alleging that one of the teenagers had used the phrase "fuck off". Although Nickelodeon maintained that the singer had in fact said "feck off", which they described "a phrase made popular by the Channel 4 sitcom Father Ted," the item was found to be in breach of the ITC Programme Code and the complaint was thus upheld.^[4]

[edit]Other uses in popular culture

• The Channel 4 situation comedy Father Ted helped to export and popularise this use of feck through its characters' liberal use of the word, especially by the drunk priest Father Jack. In an interview, Dermot Morgan explained that, inIreland, feck is far less offensive than fuck.
• The word "feck" also frequently appears extensively in the Nintendo 64 video game Conker's Bad Fur Day, in which the word replaces "fuck" in all instances. It should be noted, however, that this substitution is in no way trying to limit cursing; the game itself is riddled with blatant swearing and innuendo. It is not known whether this substitution is due to the nationality of the producers or simply to give the game a lighter mood.
• Heard repeatedly in youtube videos featuring Loca, "the pug who can't run", and sung in lyrics with an Irish flair.
• The word "feck" is also used in the movie Almost Famous by Cameron Crowe, as an alternative to the word "fuck". A teen girl (played by Zooey Deschanel) who is angry at her overbearing, strict mother (Frances McDormand) shouts, "Feck you!" Her mother is taken aback by this, stating aside to her 11-year-old son (Michael Angarano), "I can't believe she said the F-word," to which he replies, "I think she said 'feck'."
• In the 1981 film Caveman, "feck" is used as a general term of disparagement. After Atouk's band of misfits defeats Tonda, the crowd joins in proclaiming "Tonda feck! Atouk! Atouk! ATOUK!" [3]
• In 2004 French Connection UK, sellers of the popular "FCUK" T-shirt, won a legal injunction in Dublin that barred a local business from printing and selling a T-shirt marked "FCEK The Irish Connection".^[5]
• The word "feck" appears in Frank McCourt's memoir Angela's Ashes and also the film which was based upon the book. English subtitles on the original DVD miscaption "feck" as "fuck".
• There is a brand of Irish whiskey called Feckin' Irish Whiskey.
• The BBC/RTE television sitcom 'Mrs Brown's Boys' makes regular use of the word 'feck', whilst occasionally also using the more offensive 'fuck'.
• It appears frequently in the play The Beauty Queen of Leenane by Martin McDonagh.

[edit]

Forget anything?

I had a big meeting today.

BIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIG.

Like Mad Men big. Me. My idea. My presentation. Biggie-sized big.

Woke up at 5 a.m. because I was so excited I couldn't sleep. Christmas-morning big.

Dyed my hair because my roots were showing. Picked my prettiest blouse. Remembered to put eyeshadow on both eyes. Wore my new pleather biker's jacket.

Looked HAWT.

Got to work.

Realized my armpits were damper than usual.

Took an unobtrusive sniff ...

The rolling blueberries and Canadian Blog Awards

You know, when you've just rolled out of that sweet, comfy spot in the middle of the double-wide, and you're plopped on the Big White Throne having that morning tinkle, the first and best tinkle of the day, and you suddenly hear an explosion of FECK, FECK, FECK out in the kitchen, that it would be wise to slither back down the hall and stealth your sorry (but narrowing) buttocks back to the sheets. 

You know that – intellectually – right? But asking, "What's wrong, sugar-pie, honey-bunches?" is as irresistible as rubbernecking at a car wreck.

And thus I wandered into the kitchen in my ever increasingly baggy and attractive gotchies to see my husband crawling around the kitchen floor, cursing like a sailor with a pocketful of new cusses. He was picking up blueberries. Tons of blueberries. Two clamshell containers of blueberries, to be exact.

"The feck-feckitty-fecking things EXPLODED," he growled.

Exploding blueberries. 

Huh, I thought. 

I surreptitiously slunk back to the bathroom and ran some water while I hid behind the shower curtain. When the fecking and the growling was done and I heard my honey-bunny's voice say, in its regular happy tone, "Hey, where are you," I came out all casual-like, pretending I was oh-so-busy cleaning something or washing something or, you know, doing unmentionable bathroom stuff.

That's my tip of the day, people. When there's rolling blueberries and fecking in the kitchen, run like the wind. (I didn't get to be my advanced age without wind-running.)

OH. And by the WAY. The lovely Mizz Thang Laurita Miller, who is all that and a bag of partridgeberries, the Queen of all things Writerly in Newfoundland, dropped me a line yesterday to say she discovered we were BOTH nominated in different categories of the Canadian Blog Awards. Luckily we are in different categories because Laurita would kick my butt all the way to Labrador in any kind of contest. Last year she won first prize in the CBA's culture and literature category (big woots to you, Mizz Thang!) so, as you can clearly see, Laurita is a creative force to be reckoned with.

The CBAs are a voting contest. People everywhere are invited to visit the CBA website and vote in each of the many categories. If you would like to vote for Laurita, you can find her Calling Shotgun blog in the Culture and Literature category, as well as Best Blog Post. (She is very deserving in both and I have already voted for her – I hope you do, as well.) 

If you would like to throw a vote my way, go to the Best Personal Blog category. There's a ton of competition in this category and it has been won by the same fellow for the last several years. So if you can find it in your heart to give this champion a run for his money, well, by all means feel free to vote for me!!!!! 

You only get one vote in this leg of the competition, which closes on Christmas Eve. After that, though, the five finalists in each category will go through another round of voting. So if you really want to vote for Laurita and I (me and Laurita? I never get that straight), you can vote again after Christmas.

Thanks to Laurita and Paula and all my friends for the Facebook support. And to Liz, Kelly, John, Debi, Mandy and Debbie, who wrote amazing, touching, wonderful comments on the CBA website (brought me to tears, they did), thank you from the very bottom of my heart. Hugs to you all!

NOW, LET THE WILD VOTING RUMPUS BEGIN!