(11-17-2015, 07:08 PM)Oli! Wrote:(11-17-2015, 06:49 PM)Yssen Wrote: Andy Wuhl's series "Assume the Position," while done for comedy/entertainment, also has some great tidbits. It includes a whole bit about how the origins of "fuck you" were rooted in the Battle of Agincourt, essentially being diluted shifted from the words "pluck yew." Though this supposedly has more to do with the meaning of the the back handed peace sign in England. Still, the series has a bunch of neat little tidbits like that for the curious.
This is a false etymology, apparently.
It's especially noticeable if we go by dates. The papers regarding "Roger Fuckebythenavele"Â are from 1310, and his "last name" is clearly a sexual reference. It's therefore not unlikely that in the year 1310, you were able to say that you were going to "fuck someone," or "I'm going to fuck you," in the literal sense that you are going to have sexual intercourse with someone. The Battle of Agincourt, meanwhile, was in 1415, more than a hundred years after the word Fuck has been in use.
This isn't quite the insulting form of "Fuck You," but if the phrase was still in practice under another meaning (or potentially even the same meaning, considering that the idea of domination through sex is a concept that's basically older than the English Language itself), it's highly unlikely that it came from something that was phonetically similar.
Etymology and symbology are both two completely different things, and both evolve quite differently. They are similar in that they are rooted in the culture and people of particular eras, but how they evolve is completely different. Both have there place in helping to understand a period culture. That said, no one can actually be 100% certain of any of it. Much like digging up dinosaur bones, we only have our best guesses.
Still, the point was interesting tid bits on the creation of curses and swears. How they are formed and how they come to be used in language by people, and how that could be applied to Eorzea. Background research and writing technique over factual etymology and symbology. For example, Ala Mhigans may use the name of their mad king as a swear or curse because he ultimately lost them their homeland.
