Talk:fuck you

"Go away" translation

I'd say the "go away" translation rather corresponds to fuck off than fuck you. Paul Willocx 20:50, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

"go away" is good for U.S. English. I don’t know about BrE. —Stephen 22:55, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Any chance of a citation? Kappa 23:27, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

I seriously doubt it. It’s just common usage in speech, but almost unheard of in writing. If someone asks me for something that he shouldn’t be asking about, I might reply "fuck you," meaning "go away, you idiot." If someone made the request in writing, then I would not use this term. —Stephen 23:33, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Well your example is not very convincing, I would interpret "fuck you" as meaning "no you can't, and don't make such a rude request, you idiot". I believe you would be equally likely to say "fuck you" even this if person wasn't physically able to leave, or you if didn't actually want them to. Kappa 00:34, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

You may interpret it that way, but when I say it, I mean "go away." Whenever I mean "no you can't, and don't make such a rude request, you idiot," I simply say "no." In a situation where a person is not physically able to leave, or if I didn’t actually want him to, I still might use the phrase "go away" if I felt like using politer language. —Stephen 06:53, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, I think I agree with Kappa, to me the sense is closer to something like up yours. Widsith 06:57, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

To me, up yours is much ruder than fuck you ... equivalent to fuck off. I would only use up yours or fuck off if I were extremely angry; fuck you means go away, but in a friendly way. —Stephen 10:40, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Actually this is a very ruder form than fuck you....Shut the fuck up or CockWanker is more ruder. Trust me I've been called it before. Don't ask me why.--98.183.183.210 03:42, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Once you get to the use of this f-word, there isn't any way to make it more vulgar. That said, I'm not a neutral party since I don't swear at all (I have in the past, but that was long ago). Furthermore, how can the "up" phrase be anymore or any less vulgar than the f-word? Tharthan (talk) 13:48, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

offensive, taboo, vulgar

Is it really necessary to mention this over and over again in the translation table? I think that if you look up fuck you you'll notice that it is vulgar and that the translations/equivalents will also be vulgar. 81.68.255.36 17:55, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Equivalents of taboo words are not always taboo in another language, and in any case the equivalent rarely has the same strength. In some languages, the natural bodily functions such as pissing and shitting are not considered vulgar at all. In others, a mention might cause a woman to faint dead away. —Stephen 05:49, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Hehe, okay. 81.68.255.36 14:51, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Sense 4 is a sum of parts

Sense 4 is a sum of parts. 71.66.97.228 05:11, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Umm, what? 71.146.8.5 06:11, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

All definitions mean the same thing

I don't really see why you need three definitions which really say the same thing. I think everything is covered by definition 2. 80.202.87.26 20:01, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

I've raised the issue in the Tea Room: Wiktionary:Tea room/2014/June#fuck_you. - -sche (discuss) 21:05, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Etymology

I know that we could just say, "From fuck (sense 6) and you." But in my opinion that leaves a bunch of unanswered questions. Sense 6 of fuck is grammatically peculiar. It looks like an imperative derived from sense 5 or 7, but we can't do the same thing with most other verbs of destruction. Nobody says, "Kill you!" or "Bash you!" And who is the subject of this supposed imperative? We have a vague analogue in damn, where the implied subject is God. I imagine some earlier expression, "May <something really unpleasant> fuck you", but we're not allowed to just make up plausible antecedents; it would be wonderful if somebody could find an old quotation that preserves a bit more of whatever longer expression was whittled down to "fuck you". Is anything whatsoever known about this? (Note that I am not speaking here about the etymology of "fuck" itself, about which a fair amount can be guessed.) ACW (talk) 03:54, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

It's not about destruction, but thank you is similarly without a subject. I wonder if there's a subjunctive in there somewhere. Chuck Entz (talk) 05:30, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

I note a similar construction pattern for other such terms:

• curse you
• damn you
• to hell with you

‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 09:36, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

There are also constructions such as down with, away with and death to, not to mention a whole class of authoritative imperatives like off with someone's head that are reminiscent of this phenomenon: there's no agent at all- it's just supposed to happen.

As for the original construction, it seems like "X you" is the same as "may you be Xed". There's bless you, as well. I brought up the subjunctive earlier. Actually, optative is more like it. Chuck Entz (talk) 00:07, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

Well, the subject of "Bless you" is clearly intended to be God (note the variants: May God bless you (and keep you...)). So is God the intended subject here? I think it is just taking the formula from 'bless you' and 'damn you' where the subject is clearly intended to be God, based on variants, and extending it to this new context. On the other hand, it may be an indefinite subject--"May anyone f u." Orrrrr....perhaps the very indefiniteness of who the intended subject is is part of what makes this such a powerful injunction??Johundhar (talk) 21:01, 20 December 2022 (UTC)