Talk:Motherfucker/Archive 1

Archive 1

Redirect

Rather than a "see also", probably should just be a redirect. Also, isn't it usually a compound word (motherfucker)? Hmm, that appears to be a redirect to incest which doesn't match the common use of the word at all. --Brion 21:43 Jan 10, 2003 (UTC)

Just redirect it to fuck and mention that this is often used in the same context. -- Modemac

Positive usage

question (and knowing this is 'pedia not 'tionary ... ) how about the positive use of

the word to indicate something outstanding? ---- —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.66.159.54 (talk) 01:36, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Year of origin

Merriam-Webster dates the word fuck to 1952. This is significantly past the period of time implied by the article's notion that the term came about as a result of slave owners raping slave women. Is there any actual source for this information? --Michael 05:37 8 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I don't know anything about the supposed origin of the term in slavery, but it certainly predates 1952 (although perhaps not in print). One anecdotal example was found by a friend who was researching old New Orleans police records concerning bars where music was played. Something along the line of in the late 1910s a man brought to court for stabbing someone told the judge that he had to stab the other guy, because of what the other guy had called him. The judge asked "what did he call you?" "He called me a motherf-----". --Infrogmation 16:06 8 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Kurt Vonnegut put this word in to the dialog of World War II soldiers in Slaughterhouse Five. Since this book was based in part on the author's own war experience, I'm inclined to think that this was not an anachronistic use.--Drvanthorp 17:17, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Slavery

Moved:

Although often thought to relate to the widely condemned biological and cultural incest taboo, its origins are to be found in North American slavery. Here the sexual abuse of enslaved women often led to pregnancy. However the offspring were often enslaved like their mothers. Rather than refer to the man who impregnated their mother as father, the term motherfucker was often prefered. Similar grammatical forms are found in other african-english expressions such as babymother and babyfather.

I agree with Michael here. It's not the age of the term that's the problem, (as has been said, "Oedipus was the first motherfucker" <g>)it's this supposed derivation of it that's highly unlikely when you think about it. I'd like to see a source before it's put back. - Hephaestos

Song

The song you quote from the Bloodhound Gang is actually a parody of a Prodigy song. wouldnt it be mroe apropriate to use the line from the original song? Vroman 23:41 16 Jun 2003 (UTC)

The quote from the Bloodhound Gang seems a bit out of place. Scores of people have used the word to refer to just about anything under the sun, long before the members of that band were born. A more legitimate cultural reference would be better.

Grammar

Great article, the grammar sings. --ShaunMacPherson 05:11, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Age

Motherfucker can also mean one who engages in sexual intercourse with mothers, that means with older women. From the point of view of kids, a motherfucker is (an older) man who has sex with their mothers (in opposition to the kids who have sex with girls).

Texas Courts of Appeals?

Can we get a citation for this Texas Courts of Appeals claim? Avitor 22:20, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Since the term is indisputedly African-American in origin, did Wikipedia consult any of us?

It's too bad many "scholarly" folk have a tendency to pontificate on a subject, presuming a certain level of knowledge on the matter, without having once bothered to consult the source. My experience has been that white folks are especially good at this when the subject of discussion is black folks and black culture.

They know it all.

Wikipedia: "In spite of overuse, the term is widely considered highly insulting when used in earnest. In recent years, 'motherfucker' is increasingly being used to describe inanimate objects, dating back to early hip hop culture."

Amusing. Any black person would have told Wikipedia’s etymological experts the use of “motherfucker” in this fashion predates hip-hop by several decades.

Giving credit where credit is due, however, Wikipedia's tracing of the term back to slavery appears entirely plausible/probable. It is clear "motherfucker" Because the institution of slavery so muddled bloodlines and tore apart family groupings, filial bonds often were in question or completely unpresumed/unknown. While likely relatively infrequent, closely related blacks unknowingly engaging in incestuous relationships would not have been unheard of. Family members often were sold to neighboring plantations and, depending on the age of the slave, kinship knowledge easily could be lost within even a generation.

"Motherfucker" was most certainly NOT used (contrary to the silly assertion of the Wikipedia listing) by the offspring of white rapists as a "preferred" term for "father." Such casual vulgarity would not have been practiced or tolerated in slave society. Like most expletives, "motherfucker" likely was then (as it is, still) used in a pejorative, figural sense, rather than in a literally descriptive one.

Nor is there any linguistic connection structurally between "motherfucker" and such current African-American expressions as "babyfather" or "babymama." Such a presumption demonstrates a lack of even a rudimentary understanding of the evolution of what is in some circles called "Black English" or "Ebonics," and does not hold up to even casual scrutiny. Linguistically, "motherfucker" is no different in structure from "cocksucker" or, for that matter, "bricklayer" or "sharecropper." Instead, it is far more plausible "motherfucker" referred to those unfortunate black men who, unaware of their lineage, were found to have slept with their mothers or other close relations.

Further, "motherfucker" may not be contemporaneous with slavery at all, even though it seems clear its origins are rooted in that despicable institution. The term could have originated after slavery, when, in the chaos and confusion following Emancipation, millions of black folks struck out on the open road, forming new communities and, with "play" relations, kinship bonds of choice beyond known or presumed bloodlines.

"Motherfucker" -- its ubiquitousness in today's society has desensitized many of us to its power. But back in the day, it was a fightin`, cuttin`, shootin`, bleedin`, dyin' word.

In a world where fathers knew not their daughters, nor sons their mothers, it was the ultimate nightmare, the ultimate shame, the ultimate insult -- the Oedipal curse as curse word.

-- deeceevoice, April 30, 2004

---

I just realized I some time back inadvertently deleted the following comment by an unnamed contributor. (It was wholly accidental.) If I recall, the comment was posted June 3:

Im not quite certain why everyone has to have a racial identity. i myself have taken steps to become completely colrblind and just people solely on the quality of their charachter,not the color of their skin, something i dont think is being pushed very hard by the black community.

My apologies to the anonymous contributor. deeceevoice 02:54, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I hope you arnt one of those reparation people.

Well, golly. I hope you aren't one of those Klan cretins.

How the hell did reparations get into this? Frank-speak on the history of African-Americans in this nation in an APPROPRIATE context oughtn't be construed as an open invitation for guilt-ridden, defensive/offensive or well-meaning white folks to engage in Joycean, stream-of-consciousness comments or questions on matters of race and racism, generally -- or to confess their personal life philosophies. Focus, people! The subject under discussion here is "motherfucker." And lighten up, dammit! -- deeceevoice, June 8, 2004

To presume that someone who is black automatically knows more about black history than people of other colours who have made themselves known to the subject is just naive, and just as a reply to the heading: "Consault any of you"? what were "we" supposed to contact the official black people committie on wikipedia before daring to write one word about any subject touching them?. --Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 15:22, 2004 Jun 14 (UTC)

No. That's not what I said. Besides, I wrote that before I understood fully how Wikipedia operates. I didn't realize then that Wikipedia makes no pretensions of accuracy, that it's a kind of free-for-all. The democracy of the notion is kind of cool, actually. The point is it's quite clear from the statements I cited that the author of the pertinent entry is not black. While he/she may "have made themselves known to the subject," the subject matter clearly has not been introduced sufficiently to them. The sensibilities expressed are so far off the mark, they really ARE laughable -- and, indeed, somewhat insulting. Yep, far-fetched presumptions about black history and culture are fine for comic relief. But when they are produced in a format where they could be construed as fact -- that's pretty galling. But an "official black people committee"? Gee, thanks for pullin' my coat. *jumping up and down excitedly* I wanna join!! :-p -- deeceevoice, June 15, 2004

Because of Wikipedia's free-for-all nature, you are more than welcome to jump in and lend your touch to the article; I do not know whether a "white author" bias exists in the article (or in Wikipedia articles as a whole), but if you believe it does, please help to correct it! Just keep in mind our neutral point of view policy. -- Wapcaplet 22:45, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I don't know if there's a "white author bias" or not on Wikipedia. Probably so, but those are your words -- not mine. My comments relate specifically to the inaccuracy of the referenced entry, which, it seems to me, is more about ignorance and the arrogance of presumption than, strictly, "bias."

To reiterate, if you feel it's inaccurate, fix it. --Puffy jacket 12:10, 20 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Motherfucker to Mofo

"Could someone edit in how the term 'Mofo' came into being? I don't see how theres an 'O' after the 'F', when F!@#ers second letter is 'U'."

The changing of a single letter over time is simply that and is a trivial thing. In some local dialects, "street" has become "skreet" or "skree'."

Word play is part of the culture. It's all just not that serious. Considering jazz, scat and Snoop Dogg's ghetto esperanto, you're wondering about the bending of a single vowel? Call it spontaneous mutation. Call it subversion. Call it improvisation.

Or, better yet, don't.

Loosen up. You'll live longer. :-p

-- deeceevoice, April 30, 2004

First off, ghetto esperanto?! Thats just weird man

Secondly, the main reason i posted this is because i had that word stuck in my head

Thirdly, the words you just mentioned were all due to there similarities to other sounds. 'O' is such a different sound then 'U', that i think a logical train of developement is necessary (then again, maybe im just a suburban white boy)

Yep, free-spirited, frivolous "ghetto esperanto."

Day-um. No offense intended, "just a suburban white boy" -- just a little levity. It really ISN'T that serious. It's nothing more than a little vowel bending. IMO, relatively trivial. But "street" to "skreet" is consonant bending. My bad. How about "hungry" to "hongry" (a "country" pronunciation now generally used to mean SERIOUSLY hungry/hungry like a fieldhand)? It's the same skip from short "u" to long "o". Or "ugly" to "oo-ooo-oooo-gly" (as in godawful ugly)? Word play/spontaneous mutation -- part of our oral tradition. It's nothing more serious than that. deeceevoice - June 8, 2004

Fix the article then. It's open for edit. What you've written makes intuitive sense, but a book reference would help. - Hephaestos|§ 04:19, 31 May 2004 (UTC)

Okay, Okay, OKAY! I finally did it. I was reluctant to do so; I'm a newcomer. But after editing sections of "funk," I got over my reluctance. It was a carefully considered piece. I hope the original contributors have not been offended. I considered putting in a reference to my more lengthy explanation of the slavery connection, but I thought it might be inappropriate/seen as self-serving -- besides I don't yet know protocol or process. As it is, the definition is a virtual complete rewrite. I didn't mention hip hop, because m.f. is overused by a LOT of different people/segments of society. It's simply that the power of the electronic media has made hip hop the most obvious/egregious culprit. Then once I omitted hip hop, the reference to the "Corporate Motherfucker" website (or whatever it was) seemed irrelevant/superfluous. I visited it, and it didn't seem particularly meritorious of specific mention.

So, are ya happy now? If not, I'm sure you'll let me know.  :-p - deeceevoice, June 20, 2004

Hephaestos, I didn't thank you for movin' that stuff off the first page when I felt I was too new to do so. I'm glad SOMEBODY finally did. Thanks.

"the cynical destruction of the black family"?

Historically, it was a vicious taunt, a damning insult -- and a veiled allusion to the cynical destruction of the black family under the brutality of chattel slavery.

Does someone have a source for that? This page is starting to read as some kind of newspaper column. --Puffy jacket 05:10, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Well, whaddya know?!! A comment. You'll be pleased, Puffy -- maybe not -- that I've edited that phrase. I struggled with it from the beginning/didn't like it. It bothered me every time I read it -- but for different reasons. I didn't want folks to read it and think it implied forced incest was a common practice during slavery. A source? I doubt one exists. I sought to provide some historical context in my earlier comments in this section inre the cultural significance of verbal aggression and its various uses -- most notably in this instance, the practice of "signifyin'." The incest taboo has been around so long, if "motherfucker" were simply about that, it probably would have been in the English lexicon centuries ago. But this is about a whole 'nother level of verbal violence. The power of "motherfucker" as an insult among African-American men came from far more than what it said; it was all about what it EVOKED. It was calling someone so pathetically stupid, so wretched they didn't know who they mama wuz. It's about reminding them of their people's powerlessness (and their own). (If a man can't claim/control his own family, what kind of man IS he?) It's about slavery and white supremacy, and shame and self-loathing and rage turned inward and then projected outward again at "your own kind." And that all bringss us back to the art of the spoken word and verbal aggression -- readin' someone out loud, playin' the dozens [see "playing the dozens"], actin' a fool and cuttin' up. And sometimes it got outta hand. Sometimes by design. -- deeceevoice June 22, 7:58 a.m.

Sir, you just gave the most intellectual description of a vulgar term I've read in many years. May you enjoy many years as a English professor for the rest of your life. Seriously. No I mean it.  ;) (posted by User:Zalasur April 27, 2004)

Why, thanks...I think. ('S not exactly my idea of a dream career.) But I'm not a "sir"; I'm a woman. Peace. :) deeceevoice 10:48, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

My mistake... on the internet, no one knows you're a... well ya know. I didn't mean to chart a future career for you. I'm merely stating a wish that explicitely stated that my former language professors took an appreciation for profanity. After all, when learning a new language, what's the first thing you learn? The swear words, of course. Come on, admit it, y'all. -- Zalasur 05:57, Apr 28, 2005 (UTC)

Yeah. I got your meaning. :) After doing Spanish in high school and then again in college, I had to wait for a couple of decades to pass, when I took a Spanish class at a neighborhood learning center, to be officially instructed in cursing in my second language. A class of adults, it's what we all wanted to know. By then, though, I'd gotten some of the choicest words on my own; the rest, unfortunately, I've forgotten. :( deeceevoice 06:28, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It struck me that "muthafucka" isn't a contraction; it's simply a phonetic spelling. Made the change -- deeceevoice June 28, 2004

Wording

If you "correct" grammar, make sure it's a correction, rather than the substitution of a preferred form:

Main Entry - ubiq·ui·tous; pronunciation - yü-'bi-kw&-t&s; function - adjective. Date: 1837.

Existing or being everywhere at the same time, constantly encountered, WIDESPREAD. - ubiq·ui·tous·ly adverb; - ubiq·ui·tous·ness noun

But, yeah, "ubiquity" is better. So, if you wanna make the change, I think it's a good one -- but not as a "correction." deeceevoice 10:02, 9 Jul 2004 (UTC)

A quick Google search show ubiquity and ubiquitousness as synonyms. But ubiquity is used more than 50 times more often one web pages. Rmhermen 18:31, Jul 10, 2004 (UTC)

Didn't anyone take the hint? I can't STAND the form of the word I used! Yes, it's accurate. It's acceptable, but clumsy as hell. So, I'm changing it -- but not as a "correction." Besides, who could forget Roy Ayres' "Ubiquity"? (Apparently, EYE did *hanging head in shame*) And nothing on Wikipedia is sacrosanct -- least of all a discussion about the origins of the word "motherfucker." :-p deeceevoice 23:23, 10 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Online Etymology Dictionary [1] in its entry for "fuck" gives "Intensive form mother-fucker suggested from 1928; motherfucking is from 1933". That probably refers to the written examples. Any other sources for its origin. It is not easy to research online. Rmhermen 02:37, Jul 11, 2004 (UTC)

Age of origin

See the second entry on this page regarding the police report. The term is considerably older than its first print appearance. As I said, I doubt you'll find any early explications of its origins, given the nature of the word, and its source. It's not exactly the kind of thing one would find treatises on. But the violence it provoked in the referenced context probably gives you some sense of the veracity of my explanation of the term. Again, see also playing the dozens.deeceevoice 07:24, 11 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Rape

Hey I heard MF derives from the practice of gang raping slaves into submission. Modern, documented instances of this would be the Balkan wars or Abu Ghraib, I know it sounds unbelievable for civilised folks. Still these rapists (rape as a weapon of war) were and are seen as the scum of society. As well, while apparently a 'suday barbecue' was OK for bigoted southerners in the US, having their youths do those things in gangs wasnt. -- posted by User:149.225.240.153

Slavic or African-American?

Is motherfucker really african in origin? In all Slavic languages you have insults like russian "yob tvoyu mat'" or Polish "matkojebca" Szopen 13:01, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

There is no history of the English word before it appeared in use in African-American communities. The statement in the text is correct. deeceevoice 08:58, 6

Nov 2004 (UTC)

More motherfuckers should read this motherfucking article. Alexander 007 06:11, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

It's not black in origin

Go to Swearsaurus, which has extensive listing of obscenities in all langauges.

Click on pretty much any language and you'll find the concept of someone who fucks their mother. It seems to be one of the oldest and most universal insults known to mankind.

You're right and wrong. The concept is universal; the word itself is African-American in origin. deeceevoice 01:46, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

Maryland Farmer???

The part where it said about "Maryland Farmer" struck me as rather dubious, so I did a Google seach. There were very few pages that mentioned "motherfucker" and "Maryland Farmer" without mentioning "Wikipedia. [2] And even among those remaining hits, most (if not all) of them seem to be mirrors of, copies of, or references to this Wikipedia article. The story may still be true, but someone needs to cite a source. At any rate, I can say for sure that the story about the Maryland Farmers' Association is not "oft-recounted." (Or at least it wasn't before this article was written.) Blackcats 07:10, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

You're kidding -- right? I thought you were questioning the incident. It's a well known fact in the African American community. "Jive Maryland farmer" is as vintage a 1960s/1970s phrase as "jive turkey," "Everything is everything," or "Solid." You hear it in the music of the day and in the movies of the time. I figured you'd question the incident again, but the phrase itself is common knowledge -- to us, anyway. (And, yes, I'm pretty sure it was Julian Bond. Next time I run into him, I'll ask him. But, yeah. I know. "No original research.") deeceevoice 20:25, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

I don't want to have a protracted revert-war, so for now I'm just going to mark it as disputed. In the mean time someone can try and find a source for it. I'm not sure how "common knowledge" it is, because I couldn't find anything about it online that wasn't Wikipedia or a Wikipedia mirror. But of course not everything's online, and there weren't too many African Americans online in the 60s/70s (or too many of any other people for that matter!) So it may just have been a phrase that died out before the internet became popular. I've heard of "jive turkey" and jive this and that, but before reading this article, I'd never heard of "Maryland farmer" (jive or otherwise) being used to mean "motherfucker." So yeah - at any rate, it may well be true, but let's find a source. Blackcats 22:17, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Classic Wikipedia silliness. I really don't care if you put a POV tag on it or not. Do you know any African Americans over the age of 40? (Probably not.) Betcha there's a whole lot of shyt you haven't heard of about African American culture. I'm certainly not going to spend my time trying to "prove" something like this to you to your satisfaction. *x* deeceevoice 09:02, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

I've never heard of the term Maryland farmer, but I'm not any kind of American, so that's unsurprising. What I have heard of, and was reminded of when reading this article, is the term 'melon farmer'. I remember several years ago a teacher of mine told me it was dubbed into a few movies to make them suitable for TV. The first few results in a google search seem to confirm this. [3] I then had a look around Wikipedia just to be sure it wasn't already an entry, and found this. Ha! salt3d 04:57, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Rest assured the phrase is "Maryland farmer." "Melon" farmer is probably a screwed up understanding of it as pronounced in AAVE -- much like the way whites misunderstood "woof ticket" to be "wolf ticket. deeceevoice 01:47, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

After a google search turned up virtually no references to the term "maryland farmer" as a euphemism for "motherfucker" that were not mirrors or forks of this article, I've taken the line out. It may well have been in the 60's and 70's, and if it was so widely used as has been claimed, a reference should be easy to find. I find it odd that if it was "in the music of the day and in the movies of the time" that there are no references to it in the numerous movie quote/song lyric sites out there.Brian Schlosser42 21:46, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Whether or not the term "Maryland farmer" was routinely used by blacks, and I'm perfectly willing to believe it was (take the word of a black man on this matter over the word of my pasty ass), the euphemism "melon farmer" (which may well be a corrupted version of "Maryland farmer") was definitely used in the TV versions of movies including Repo Man and Die Hard. Anyone who has ever seen these movies on network TV knows this. If the censors screwed up a misheard AAVE term because they had no idea what the words really were, well, that just makes it even funnier, and it was pretty damn funny already, but it doesn't mean that the actors who did the dubbing weren't told to say "melon farmer." It's pretty obvious that they were. IMDB lists[4] the "melon farmer" rendition, though admittedly IMDB is sometimes not all that picky. Anyway, maybe one of us motherfucking afficionados has a closed-caption VHS copy of a TV broadcast of one of these films and can put the issue to rest once and for all. As this is a high-profile and memorable broadcast euphemism for "motherfucker," it is worthy of mention in the article once verified, I think. (Of course, I'd say that, seeing as how I added a mention only to see it rv'd in minutes.) Jerry Kindall 04:33, 29 April 2006 (UTC) edited Jerry Kindall 06:31, 30 June 2006 (UTC) (yeah, two months later, I was revisiting my watch pages)

US Origin?

Regardless of whether it was coined by black slaves, can we at least agree that it came from the USA? The OED (original 2nd ed. print) says "originally US" if you want a source. Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley _{talk contrib} 04:10, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

The Mothers

In my day, the term was used as a friendly term to describe soldiers in the United States Army. It was the shortened version of GDMFSOBs. They were also called the Septics, which is probably worse, but still friendly. I lived in Great Britain for years, and the term was not considered particularly bad, as described in this article. Wallie 21:03, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Cantonese Triad Influence

The origin of the phrase "mother fucker" is possibly due to confluence of African American and Cantonese influences. The Cantonese profanity "fuck your mother" has been in common use for at least the last hundred years. The Cantonese usage has a few variations.

1. The complete phrase in Cantonese is "fuck your mother's smelly (putrid) cunt(female reproductive genitalia)".
2. Fuck your mother.
3. Fuck your mother's cunt.
4. Fuck your old mother's putrid cunt.
5. Fuck your mother's old cunt.

This Cantonese profanity has influenced the profanity of English speakers of Chinese ancestry in Malaysia and Singapore and parts of Southeast Asia at least since the end of WW2. Consequently, English speakers of non-Chinese ancestry adopted it into common use. These are the variations of the phrase when spoken in English which has been in common use in Southeast Asia since the 1970's.

1. Fuck your mother.
2. Go fuck your mother.
3. Mother-fucking idiot.
4. Mother-fucking bastard.
5. Bloody mother-fucking bastard. (This variation is a confluence of British (bloody bastard) and Cantonese (fuck your mother) vulgarities possibly due to British colonialism in Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore).
6. Fuck your mother's smelly ass.
7. Your mother's smelly vagina (possibly used to denounce someone's credibililty - as believable as your mother's smelly vagina/cunt. "His birthday party was as great as his mother's smelly vagina."
8. A rarely used phrase is - fuck your mother's bald vagina. This a result of pidgen usage confusing between the terms vagina and vulva.

A consequence of the Cantonese phrase having influence in Malay profanity is the Malay profanity "puki-ma-lu", which translates to "your mother's cunt". However, it is probably more due to the influence of Fujianese profanity or of both. There is also a Tamil profanity of the same meaning. It is a possibility that a similar phrase is found in Thai at that same time too.

Therefore, since the 1970's, Malaysia and Singapore had been fertile ground where the "mother fucking" phrase would sometimes be uttered in all five languages/dialects (Cantonese, Fujianeses, Tamil, Malay and English) within the same argument. A late example(circa 1988), "Khan-ni-niah [presumably Fujianese profanity], this blood-sucking chundi [presumably Tamil profanity] government needs to get rid of those ass licking ministers with their mother fucking policies, puki-ma [Malay profanity]!" was heard being uttered by a native after office hours in an American multinational site. The same profane phrase being expressed in four languages within a single sentence.

The phrase "mother fucker" did not surface into common usage in the United States until the late 1980's. The hypothesis and observable evidence is the confluence and cooperation between Chinese Triads and African American drug gangs, which became more common in the 1970's. An observation in the 1970's of a confrontation between a Cantonese shop keeper and a Tamil member of a local gang in Malaysia could provide support to this relationship where the shop keeper told the gangster to move on by saying in English "Go! Fuck your mother!" The gang member's response was "You fuck your mother, you mother-fucking shit."

One could imagine similar situations having developed in New York City or San Francisco with drug deals gone sour between two cooperating gangs, one Cantonese American and the other African American. The phrase "mother fucker" has also replaced "cock sucker" as the extreme profanity of choice in the United States around the 1980's.

The peculiarity in Malaysia and Singapore is the phrase used in the 1970's was "mother-fucking" rather than "mother-fucker". This is probably due to influence of British English where the gerund is used more often than in United States English - as in the Malaysian profanity - Ass Licking Balls Carrying Bastard (someone who patronises his superiors to the extremes, often to gain favour). Incidentally, "balls carrying" is another result of Cantonese and Fujianese profanity - which in turn resulted in the Malaysian/Singaporean English speaker's profanity "Assistant Balls Carrier", commonly abbreviated to ABC. e.g., "He certainly has no problems getting the promotion since he's constantly the ABC." The phrase "Ass licking balls carrying mother fucking piece of shit" would carry verbal violence to the utmost extremes.

Dispute on the extent of Asian influence would range from merely encouraging an already existent phrase to surface to the streets, to being the origin of the phrase. Ancestral worship and filiel piety being a hallmark of Chinese culture since ancient times, to curse your adversary's ancestors or parents would therefore be the most extreme verbal violence you could mete out. It is difficult to deny the coincidence of increase in Asian emigration and criminal activity with the rise of the usage of the phrase "mother fucker" in the United States and that a phrase having been in common use in various parts of Asia had had its influence exported to the United States either to precipitate its use or to become the origin of its use.

Miamidot 04:17, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Awkward

Anyone else feel this paragraph:

This phrase originates before America was even discovered, the Lords and Kingsmen would ride up on their horses into the Villages and find a peasent woman they wanted to fuck (engage in sexual intercourse with) and go ahead and do so, often it would actually be rape, many of the women would be married with children, so the kids began to call these so called men, Mother Fuckers, because they were fucking the mothers of the Village.

is a little ackward. For starters, why 'so called' men? They're men. Perhaps disgusting men but I doubt think there was any suggestion they weren't men. The often it would actually be rape bit also seems a bit ackward (obviously it was usually rape). All in all I think the paragraph needs to be reworked, any suggestions? 203.109.240.93 13:26, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

The thing about the "so called men" possibly refers to the males constant need to prove that, yes, he has a penis and he knows how to use it. One stupid "Right" that the king would use was "Droit De Signur", or the right of the first night, in which the king would demand a newly married womans virginity. These "men" only thought themselves men because they did what they thought was manly, much like playing knife games. SeleneKnight 15:38, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Songs

The "Songs" section seems to be getting ridiculous. Should every song that contains the word be included? I can see those songs that actual use it in the title but simply because it's in the song once or twice? I removed "No Warning Shot" by Six Feet Under a bit ago since it is only used in the song itself (albeit about 8 times) but it adds nothing to the article. Is there any value to listing these songs that only contain the word or are they simply to titillate? -- Borameer ™ 16:21, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

No, not every mention of MF should be noted. Perhaps we should weed somehow for particularly notable occurences (ie, one's that spurred debate, news, boycotts, etc). --ZimZalaBim (talk) 05:49, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

See also

The see also section and the celebrity uses section are beyond absurd and will never ever ever be complete I am removing them as they are far from encyclopedic.IvoShandor 13:50, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Incest?

oops did I delete that. next time sign with the four tildes ~ ~ ~ ~ (you don't use the spaces)

Is this really needed?

In the "uses in popular culture", someone has put the words " who is an islander hottie. It is the best TV show ever." after the name of a television character. Since it did not add to the article (the article is about one of the 7 words, not Summer Heights High), I have removed it. In future, try not to add such things, even if the character is an "islander hottie" or if the show is "the best TV show ever." Wikipedia is not LiveJournal, it is an encyclopedia. SeleneKnight 15:46, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Removed some errant spanish —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.102.242.208 (talk) 05:20, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism

Due to vandalism, this article should be protected from editing. 71.51.124.230 22:58, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. This page is subject to a lot of vandalism, and should be protected just as Fuck is. Zouavman Le Zouave 09:53, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

...incest [citation needed]

"The term is literally an accusation of incest[citation needed]" Oh come on. It's obvious, why does that need a citation? What do you want, a link to "mother" and "fucker" in a dictionary? 203.171.97.136 (talk) 08:11, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

I removed the sentence and the citation, but included an explicit definition with links in the re-write. This.machinery (talk) 22:18, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Opening re-write

Re-wrote most of the first paragraph and shaped it around illustrative examples. Also fixed a few grammatical and spacing errors in the rest of the article, though there are probably still some remaining. This.machinery (talk) 22:18, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Frank Zappa and the Mothers (of invention)

Frank Zappa talks about how The Mothers of Invention was originally supposed to be called The Mothers, because it's short for motherfuckers, and how motherfucker supposedly means a talented musician, in this 1974 interview with Finnish broadcaster YLE: http://youtube.com/watch?v=rYu3UsNIXMM&feature=related (at about 6 minutes)

There are "citation needed" tags for both of these statements in the article, so if this citation is good enough, it should probably be added to the article. TrondM (talk) 23:57, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Something to add?

Where the article talks of pop culture or songs, we could maybe add some references to the cantonese pop band LMF (lazy mutha fucka) Just saying

Archive 1

Origins of motherfucker

The term "mother fucker" is an awakening or realisation of youth who are being abused by their Father. He would be using a heteronormative script to orchestrate a state of emotional turmoil for his child to avoid all responsibility in the childs upbringing but insist on "claiming back" from the child for his sacrifices.

The term "mother fucker" or "mofcker" refers to a man who has sex with someone else's mother, specifically with a woman in some kind of tight spot (e.g., economically) who agrees to sex with that man only out of desperation. The woman doesn't really want to sleep with this man, and she isn't a prostitute in the professional sense, but this man presents an alternative to watching her children go hungry.

The term gained tremendous traction during WWII, originally amongst black American GIs, and was applied literally to American soldiers (black, white, or otherwise) in war-torn Europe who would trade food, money, or anything of value (cigarettes, chocolate, booze) for sex with desperately poor or starving French and German women. Many of these women were home-makers whose husbands had been conscripted away, killed, or imprisoned, leaving the women to support the couple's children alone. Many lacked trade skills, and the war damaged the local economies so badly that they had few, if any, alternatives.

So calling a man a "mother fucker" meant that he was A) taking advantage of poor and downtrodden people with no options, and B) incapable of seducing non-desperate women. Anyone with experience growing up in desperate poverty, or who saw his own parents humiliated by circumstances beyond his control, would probably consider that kind of behavior to be a pretty low thing.

In the last sixty or so years, the term has entered the popular slang as a term of derision ("That Richard Nixon is a real mother fucker, you know?"). More recently, it's been used as an indicator of extraordinary intensity, not necessarily in a derisive sense, but usually still carrying some implications of harshness ("I fell asleep out in my lawn chair, yesterday, and got a mother fucker of a sunburn.") or intimidating awesomeness ("That Shaft, he's one baaaad mother fucker.").

---

The preceding all sounds made up. Where are the citations?

Bobby Seale, Seize the Time (Random House, 1970), p. 408.--98.114.178.63 (talk) 05:27, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

---

Ahh, I hear the term "motherfucker" a lot. I doubt that it means to fuck somebody's mother. :3

It is all made up. The term and the concept date back into antiquity. See Leviticus 18:7 -- "Dude, don't fuck your mom."

---

I was always intrigued by the use of the motherfucker insult in American movies, thinking "well why is there a problem with having intercourse with mothers" but recently I've read a number of pulp fiction crime books from the 30s, in particular ones by black authors. I noted that there are a lot of insults using the term "mother rapers" and I believe that the modern use of the term is actually derived from this - ie. someone who rapes mothers would (at least in my mind) be a derogatory term. It's just been changed, probably within the black community to the seemingly more powerful "mother fucker" though to outsiders it's less strong, and now in modern black culture the original meaning has now been lost.

Dr Dre invented motherfuck?

Does anyone buy this? This is incredibly dubious and seems to scream the whole phenomenon of pop-culture co-opting reality. Just because he's the first one to rap it in a song as a verb hardly makes him the first person to use it, particularly when the construction already allows for the because of the adaptability of "fuck". Maybe Dre popularized it, but isn't it even more likely that Dre just picked it up from common usage of people around him? Maybe you can credit him with popularizing it, but I think that whole thing should be removed it doesn't get cites - Dre claiming to have invented it at the very, very least.

Motherfuck is a word of the people until proven otherwise. 68.100.128.43 (talk) 09:31, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

The word motherfucker was used by many people, many times, before Dre was born. Nietzsche 2 (talk) 01:30, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, Prince uttered that word to his Father in 'Purple Rain', circa 1984. That could well have been the first mainstream-filmed use of the word, although clearly it had been used in stand-up comedy before that. FungasUK (talk) 20:50, 20 February 2011 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.69.237.5 (talk)

: "The Rose" (1979) was earlier. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.222.9.250 (talk) 09:14, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Famous use in films

If Carlin's use of motherfucker is relevant enough to include in the article, why are "Yipee kay ay motherfucker!" from the Die Hard tetralogy and "...motherfucking snakes on a motherfucking plane" from Snakes on a Plane not relevant enough to be included? Nietzsche 2 (talk) 01:35, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

While you bring up a good point, Die Hard and Samuel Jackson films don't cause Supreme Court cases. backstabb 23:09, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, there are numerous films in which the term was used. Why bother with a list of them? Surv1v4l1st ^{(Talk|Contribs)} 21:23, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

"The famous catchphrase of Bruce Willis's character John McClane in the Die Hard movies, "Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker", has been named "the greatest one-liner in movie history"." ....by one film critic who is not the authority on the matter. Is this really worth noting?!

Common

Motherfucker (sometimes spelled muthafucka, mofcker or mutherfucker) is a common[citation needed] insult <- [leaving the house needed] @ whoever added that [citation] tag

Origin in American slavery

This word originates from American slavery, and does not reference incest. It originally described a slave owner who raped his female slaves.

According to the Hidden Colors 4: The Religion of White Supremacy, it does reference the incestuous relationship between slaves in forced breeding programs & thus proliferated into American vernacular. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.135.95.216 (talk) 17:38, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

Drb9s (talk) 03:50, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

This term did not originate in WWII.. this term originated during the slavery era in the US

I have no idea who came up with the WWII origin, but I took an African history class, and I distinctly remember the textbook and the teacher saying this term originated during the slavery era in Unitedstater's history. The terms refers to a male, often muscular, that the slave-owners would pick to impregnate the women, so they would have strong offspring, and thus- "good" slaves. There is no nice way of saying it.

Are we posting the truth here, or are we going to gloss over the sadder, more morbid parts of Unitedstater's history?

When I find the textbook, I'll be back.

70.225.180.96 (talk) 05:55, 1 February 2010 (UTC)brainsaber@yahoo.com

Yeah yeah, and maybe you're going to insist that "picnic" is derived from "pick a nigger"? This is the grossest folk etymology I've ever heard -- if there's ever been such a function, why call it a "motherfucker", not just "fucker" or "inseminator"? any linguistic evidence of a calque from some African language? Actually, you can find insults concerning sex & one's descent in every culture, and other European languages have exact counterparts, cf. Russian "Yob tvoyu mat`" ("may your mother be fucked".

Dialloriddle (talk) 23:11, 14 September 2016 (UTC)I want to cosign this explanation. This is based on African American Oral Tradition and should at least be referenced in the Wiki-Page on the subject. It will be tough to find written evidence of this as slaves weren't ALLOWED to be literate and those who were, for many reasons, wouldn't have committed this profane word to the page at that time. The first recorded use of the word in it's modern sense is a African-American soldier to his Draft Board in 1919. That's not a coincidence. There's a word that means "shit" in every culture, but the way Motherfucker is used today started in the rural slave communities of the South. Hoping to find written evidence of that is probably futile but the circumstantial evidence in the oral tradition is there.Dialloriddle (talk) 23:11, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Please check this page for conflict of information or sourcing

Check the Origins Section , it says " its a term for someone who had sex with someones mother"

Now take a look at the section Variants, where it says "Usually"

I would propose this page for deletion since this page totally lacks any encyclopedic merit. But like its counterpart on articles about other swear words, someone is bound to come and clean it up.

The wording on this totally sucks and appears to have some from a site that deals with urbanology of wording. —Preceding unsigned comment added by JasonHockeyGuy (talk • contribs) 07:35, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Article should be flagged for clean up

This article doesn't read well at all. I am doubtful it meets Wikipedia standards. Oceanonwiki (talk) 22:14, 6 February 2010 (UTC)oceanonwiki

Bad article

This article is horrible. The origins of the word are unsourced, and I believe wrong. The rest of it is filled with trivial nonsense. It should be deleted, or at least cleaned up.Mk5384 (talk) 10:14, 21 February 2010 (UTC) One more thing; could anyone tell me what was so bad about the edit by Ying Soon Cheong Desmond that it was permanently removed rather than reverted?Mk5384 (talk) 21:26, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I would like to nominate this article to be partially merged with Fuck

I think we should close this article, and merge the following info into Fuck

"Like many widely used offensive terms, motherfucker has a large list of derivative terms. Motherhumper, motherfugger, mothersucker,motherlover, you motha, mofo, motherflower, and many more are sometimes used in polite company or to avoid censorship.[1] The participlemotherfucking is often used as an emphatic, in the same way as the less strong fucking. The verb to motherfuck has a wide variety of meanings, although it is less common.

Conversely, when paired with an adjective and/or the word "one", it becomes a term denoting such things as originality and masculinity.

Usually the word 'motherfucker' is used in place of an adjective in a sentence, such as: That trig problem was a real motherfucker. In this case, it was used in place of the word 'bitch'. It can sometimes be used in a variant of Fuck you, i.e., Motherfuck you.

Some other examples include:

Why did you touch me, motherfucker? Get in the motherfucking car.

Usually, the word does not mean someone has had sex with another person's mother. Instead it is understood as a swear word, most related to "fuck".""

Article's definition limited?

As I have always understood the word, its offensiveness comes from the assertion that a motherfucker is someone who has sex with his/her own mother. Its implication of incest and the visceral disgust having sex with your own mother arouses is why the term is just so offensive. I was unaware that this wasn't the normal meaning of the term. I can accept its historical origins as outlined in the article, but I think in contemporary use the definition I have given is the common meaning or at least a commonly held understanding of the term - yet this is ignored in the article. 121.73.7.84 (talk) 09:14, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Find some sources to back up your assertions, and you are perfectly free to add your ideas to the article. 71.77.20.119 (talk) 15:12, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Words can have different meanings and even different origins in different cultures. The article could even do with a link to Oedipus ! --195.137.93.171 (talk) 12:11, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Adolf Hitler is a real mot­herfuc­ker, you know?

{{editsemiprotected}} "Adolf Hitler is a real mothe­rfuc­ker, you know?"

Please remove this arbitrary and entirely unnecessary example. --87.78.120.24 (talk) 00:19, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

I removed the entire section, it was unsourced, and I don't think it added anything to the article. If someone wants to restore any of it, please find sources and provide citations for the material to be restored. --Nuujinn (talk) 00:43, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Bad ass mother fucker

i added a brief mention of this phrase. this is a good place to mention that the acronym for this, bamf, is often used on WP as a type of vandalism, as the letters can look like a title or degree or other formal use, as in "Steve austin, PHD, BAMF". of course, this article needs better sourcing, etc, but i hope my addition will help people who look up BAMF in various forms.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 05:09, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Possible clue

I don't know how reliable a source http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/articles/pages/749/Motherfucker.html is or whether the citations it makes are accurate. It suggests that the term moved from US Black English usage to wide familiarity among "white" US people as well via racial mixing in the military. Jack Waugh (talk) 20:28, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Invariably male?

I would like to edit this article to remove the line from the opening paragraph, "a personal direct object referred to as such is invariably male.[1]" From my own experience this is not true, and it is not in fact supported by the external link it cites, which is to Dictionary.com and mentions nothing about the sex of the person this term is applied to. I would also like to see some citations for the earlier part of the sentence (which may indeed be true) "Due to the semiotics, it is not generally applied personally to females."

Unfortunately, I can't figure out how to edit this article, could somebody else make these changes please? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.72.5.174 (talk) 16:43, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Do you have a reliable that says that women are often called motherfuckers? Jim Michael (talk) 22:28, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

Protection for related page

Could someone consider protecting BAMF, the disambig page which states that BAMF is an acronym for bad ass mother fucker. its gotten some abuse.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 05:13, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

OR removed
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I believe the term "motherfucker" is rather new to the English language, but its meaning dates back to the dawn of agriculture and matriarchal societies( Neolithic) . it generally means to go against an established order...whether the order be rational or not. in early societies nature was considered female and life giving and the female human was also seen as a life giver/nurturer and therefore wise. a person choosing to ignore custom or challenge it (usually men) was considered dangerous and possibly outcast. many of our greatest discoveries and advancements came from people challenging established orders and would have been seen initially as "motherfuckers". in other cases certain people just caused trouble for short term gain of little consequence. these people would be seen as real "motherfuckers"!

Citation not needed

No citations are needed to prove "motherfucker" (mofo,ma-fucker,mf,etc.) is, taken literally, somebody who fucks his mother. It's obvious. The word comes from 2 original words, "mother", and "fucker", joined together in a common and ordinary way. In the same way "dogfucker", "pigfucker", "cocksucker" and "crocodilerimmer" all mean exactly what you'd think, as indeed do "motherliker", "motherhelper", and "fatherfucker", so does motherfucker. It's just two incredibly well-known words, one after the other. Why *wouldn't* it mean the bleedin' obvious?

Where would you even expect to find a citation of this? Who would ever think it needed writing down, and where would they look to confirm it's true?

All that said, the word is almost never used literally anyway, and is so obvious that no literal explanation is needed. These points mean there's no real need to even have such an explanation. Somebody with some authority, fix it one way or another.

Asking formally, either remove the "citation needed" tag, or remove the whole "literal definition" altogether.

188.29.165.66 (talk) 22:22, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit semi-protected}} template.  ^B E _C K ^Y _S A ^{Y L} E _S  23:28, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Lets talk

How can i read other languages CalvinTing (talk) 13:37, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

Comment by IP 74.83.49.65

The definition of origin represented here are so different and many it's more responsible to say "origins unknown". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.83.49.65 (talk) 01:23, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

The Miles Davis anecodote

I read the "after thanking him for the compliment" as a bit of humour on the part of the author rather than an indication that "motherfucker" is literally considered a compliment by jazz musicians. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 01:33, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

Jamaican slaves

This originated back when Jamaican were captured and put on slave ships. The white man would offer put a bag over a strong male and his mothers head and make him have sex with her in front of the other slaves to insert dominance. Some of you are ignorant and need to go back to a REAL history class. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.138.178.209 (talk) 20:06, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

Please be WP:CIVIL.

Is there a WP:RS to support this claim? Paradoctor (talk) 22:19, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

Slavic or Spanish connection?

I often visit Slovenia, which used to be part of Yugoslavia, and I'm struck by the fact some of the cruder swear words are in fact borrowed from Serbo-Croatian - perhaps a leftover from military service in the Yugoslav army, where that was the working language? One of the commonest ones, which is casually dropped into conversation (almost invariably by men), literally means "into (your) mother's vagina" - though of course the word used is more vulgar than that. Another Slavic language, Russian, also has a crude expression referring to sex with someone else's mother. And Latin American Spanish has a similar phrase, which is so commonly heard that in Mexico, at least, the ordinary word for 'mother' ('madre') apparently tends to be replaced by "mamá" when referring politely to anyone's mother... Since so many Hispanic and Slavic immigrants have come to the USA, and the MF expression originated there (I never heard it when growing up in 1950s and 1960s Britain), I wonder if it spread into American English from one of those languages. But there's probably no way of knowing.89.212.50.177 (talk) 10:25, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

i think this was from a murder case

check the article and entomology — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.230.11.66 (talk) 20:59, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

No mention of etymology from US slavery era

I know this is about the topic content, and that is discouraged, but I'm surprised there's no mention of a story of origin of this word that I have heard, which I've not researched (yet): When enslaved women would become pregnant, they are brought into the slave owners house to reside during the pregnancy. The owner would then use the pregnant woman for sex to prevent his conceiving a child with her. Hence the slave owner is a motherfucker.

Slavery source of "Motherfucker" raises an important question about inclusion of oral tradition

There are African American people in this talk thread, and in my own circle of friends, claiming that the origin of the word has to do with the act of forced incest perpetrated by slavers on male slaves and their mothers. In my research online, I have found no written reference to this - this claim appears to be purely oral tradition. Considering the involuntary illiteracy of generations of African Americans and the systemic and institutional suppression of their stories, this claim could very well be true and the exclusion of it could be accurately interpreted as an act of the very same systemic suppression of information. Therefore, I'm advocating for the inclusion of this version of the story, with the reference "Unlettered Oral Tradition." That way, readers can use their own judgment as to the claim's accuracy, rather than having that very choice removed by Wikipedia's standards of verifiability. It would be in the service of education and truth to include the oral history. Dasheya13 (talk) 18:55, 23 June 2020 (UTC)Dasheya

No citations in the first two paragraphs

No citation in the first paragraph and none in the second until #1 at the very end. One could at least use a standard dictionary for citations when offering definitions of words or phrases. Lytzf (talk) 07:35, 16 July 2021 (UTC)