Re: USAGE: Dutch v or f (was: Grimm's Law)

En réponse à Levi Tooker <nerd525@...>:

>
> I have heard theories that the English word was indeed
> a loan from German "ficken" and/or French "foutre",
> both of which have similar meanings to "fuck" and bear
> some orthographic representation.
>
The problem is that the French word is not a verb. It's a noun (it basically
means: "sperm"). It's only verb-like use is in the expression "va te faire
foutre" (basically: "go to hell", but literally "go get fucked") but in my
opinion it's a short form, based on the similarity of the noun "foutre" with
verbs ending in "-tre". The probably long form was something like: "va te faire
remplir de foutre". There's no such verb as "foutre" meaning "fuck".

There *is* a verb "s'en foutre", maybe related, but I doubt it because its
meaning is much different: it means: "not to give a damn". There is also a
verb "foutre", but it's a vulgar equivalent of "mettre": "to put", "to give"
or "faire": "to do", "to make". In both case, I tend to see it as a deformation
of "faire", maybe with the noun "foutre" as pattern :)) .

But that's only my intuition as native speaker of French. I may be wrong. I
don't know the origin of the word "foutre".

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.

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