Tuesday, September 1, 2009

FWOTD: ‘Frak’

frak (a partial euphemism for) fuck, in various senses and parts of speech. [Coined on, and chiefly associated with, the television show Battlestar Galactica. In the Original Series (1978), used exclusively as an interjection; in the Reimagined Series (2003–2009), used more broadly as a euphemism for many forms of fuck, both figurative and literal. Spelled frack in Original Series scripts, frak in the Reimagined Series, apparently because the producers wanted it to literally be a four-letter word.]

I just got my copy of Jesse Sheidlower’s The F-Word, in its brand-new third edition, and it’s frakkin’ awesome. I think my favorite word so far is Dutch fuck, meaning “an act of lighting one cigarette from another.”

Sheidlower’s FWOTD page here, Twitter feed here.

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