The F-Word (44 page)

2
. a sex toy, as a dildo or vibrator.

2007
V. Crowley
Longing for Toys
216: [She] shoved the vibrator all the way up her cunt.… Lucille felt the big fuck toy slip out of her.

fucktruck
noun

1
. a vehicle in which people engage in sexual activity; esp. a van or large car having bedding, etc., in the back.

1979
in
Australian National Dictionary
: The boys wearing blue singlets in their striped fuck trucks yelled & pressed down on the horns but fifi [
sic
] kept going.
1982
J. Breslin
Forsaking All Others
47: An overnight stay with her husband in the trailer parked outside the prison fence—“the fuck truck,” the inmates called it.
1990
T. Thorne
Dictionary of Contemporary Slang
:
Fuck truck
…another term for
passion wagon
.
1993
Independent
(London) (June 9) (“Focus”) 22: There was this Australian freak who had this van called the Fuck Truck.
1995
Time Out New York
(Oct. 25) 25: Fucktruck…was common parlance in a certain Tennessee town in the late ’70s.
1998
N.Y.C. editor: We used
fuck truck
in the ’60s to mean “passion wagon.”
2006
J. Iversen
High School Confidential
221: Steve drove and old Chevy minivan with a mattress in the back that he had dubbed the “fuck truck.”

2
. a bus that brings prospective sexual partners together; esp. one of various shuttle buses in the Boston area running between nearby women’s colleges and Harvard or M.I.T.

1990
S. Orlean
Saturday Night
21: Many Wellesley students consider the Fuck Truck a source of personal growth.
1998
N.Y.C. woman: As a student at Wellesley, I—and most of my classmates—referred to the bus that took us from campus to M.I.T. and Harvard as the “fucktruck.”… the M.I.T. and Harvard guys called it the same thing.
1998
N.Y.C. man: The fucktruck was the bus that went from M.I.T. out to Wellesley.
1998
R. Campo
Desire to Heal
77: Frequent trips on the free shuttle bus (called the “fuck truck”) to Mount Holyoke and Smith.
2002
B. Mezrich
Bringing Down the House
118: At MIT, there was no place better to meet eager young women, bused right to the building’s front steps from the nearby all-girl colleges. The bus was lovingly renamed the “fuck truck.”
2005
H. Winston
Unchosen
153: Brandeis is not actually in Boston, but nine miles west of the city, accessible to him only by commuter rail—or, he later learned, the “fuck truck” from Harvard, named for the supposed sexual libertinism of the Brandeis students.

fuck-up
noun
Especially
Military
.

1
. an incompetent person; a chronic bungler; a misfit. [The 1942 quotation, collected from Australian schoolchildren, may have resulted from a misunderstanding of this term.]

[
1942
S.J. Baker
Australian Language
206:
Fug-up
. A stodgy person, one who prefers a “fuggy” atmosphere to playing out of doors.] [
1944
Newsweek
(Jan. 24) 68: I am not a messup any more. I like the army.]
ca
1945
J. Cheever in
Letters
(1988) 108: Last night two fuckups were discussing their disatisfactions [
sic
] with the army.
1948
N. Mailer
Naked & Dead
224 [refers to WWII]: Bunch of fug-ups, lose a goddam gun, won’t even take a drink when it’s free.
1946–50
J. Jones
From Here to Eternity
ch. iv: He’s such a fuckup I was afraid we’d shoot somebody on a problem.
1951
E. Hemingway in
Selected Letters
(1981) 721: To me he is an enormously skillful fuck-up and his book will do great damage to our country.
1954
F.I. Gwaltney
Heaven & Hell
194 [refers to WWII]: You’re not commanding a fuckup company. This is a regiment, and not every man in it is a fuckup.
1955
T. Anderson
Your Own Beloved Sons
8: Whenever he screwed up they knew it. He was a fuckup.
1962
J. O. Killens
Then We Heard the Thunder
39 [refers to WWII]: You’re nothing but a first-class fuck-up.
1965
C. Brown
Manchild in the Promised Land
145: The cats who had a little bit of sense but who were just general fuck-ups were sent to the Annex.
1967
J. Kornbluth
Notes from the New Underground
14: What stupid fuck-ups men are!
1971
Playboy
(May) 207: You mean we’re gonna let them fuck-ups play on
our
ball diamond?
1979
in S. Terkel
American Dreams
396: I’m not a great believer in failure as a sin. A couple of our writers are fuckups.
1980
S. Kopp
Mirror, Mask, & Shadow
81: I become…[an] uncomfortably vulnerable fuck-up whose blunder is now exposed to my eyes and to theirs.
1985
E. Leonard
Glitz
152: I thought maybe I was a total fuckup.
a
1990
E. Currie
Dope & Trouble
22: I used to be a real fuck-up, you know?
1996
M. Aftel
Story of your Life
iv. 79: How do you portray yourself in this plot—as a seeker, a journeyman, a budding entrepreneur, an indentured servant, a hired hand, an expert, a fuckup, an uninspired drudge, a hotshot?
2000
R. Barger et al.
Hell’s Angel
ii. 15: I was considered a fuckup. I didn’t take to authority.
2000
A. Bourdain
Kitchen Confidential
90: He, more than anyone else I encountered in my professional life, transformed me from a bright but druggie fuck-up into a serious, capable and responsible chef.
2005
K. MacNeil
Stornoway Way
68: I wish for the ten millionth time that I enjoyed, or could even tolerate, violence. I’m a fuck-up when it comes to being anything other than peaceful.

2
. a blunder; botch;
FOUL-UP
, definition 1. Compare 1941 quotation at
FRIG-UP
.

1949
E. Partridge
Dictionary of Slang & Unconventional English
(ed. 3) 1054:
F*ck-up of, make a
. To fail miserably at; to spoil utterly; low coll.: C.20.
1951
J. Kerouac in
Selected Letters
(1981) 321: [Interference] promises fuckups.
1958
J. O’Hara
From the Terrace
257: Such a Goddam fuck-up.
1964
R. Allen
High White Forest
266 [refers to WWII]: Two of our divisions got tangled up there…and the Krauts hit them from the slope. What a fuck-up!
1968–71
M. Cole & S. Black
Checking it Out
105: Not only was that a fuck-up of LEAP’s name but why the hell did I accept their stealing?
1972
Metropolitan Review
(May) 4: No fuck-up should go unridiculed.
1977
R. Coover
Public Burning
455: And now it scared them that somebody might catch them in a fuck-up.
1984
“W.T. Tyler”
Shadow Cabinet
241: A royal bureaucratic fuck-up, take my word.
1986
D. Tate
Bravo Burning
96: A small…, probably perfectly explainable fuck-up.
1994
J. Kelman
How Late it Was
208: Whatever brains he had man he had to use them. Nay fuck-ups.
2005
Z. Smith
On Beauty
44: He felt he couldn’t tell his own family this fact; it was easier for them to believe that last year was Jerome’s “romantic fuck-up” or—more pleasing to the Belsey mentality—his “flirtation with Christianity.”

fuck up
verb
[compare synonyms
bugger up
,
FRIG UP
,
screw up
; also influenced by (if not the inspiration for)
muck up
].

1
. to ruin, spoil, or destroy; to botch; in phrase:
fuck up the detail
,
Military
. to bungle. See also earlier
FUCKED UP
.

1929
F. Manning
Middle Parts of Fortune
I. v. 92: And they’ll call up all the women/When they’ve fucked up all the men. [
1932
E. Halyburton & R. Goll
Shoot & Be Damned
206 [refers to 1918]: That big tub of sour owl milk will jazz up the detail for all of us. You’d better dust off a court martial for him.]
1942
H. Miller
Roofs of Paris
248: You and Sid are going to fuck up everything before you’re through.
1942
in M. Morriss & R. Day
South Pacific Diary
(1996) 33: If there is any way for a thing to be fucked up, the Army will find it.… Sometimes they’ll even fuck it up when you’d think it’s impossible.
1944
J. O’Hara in
Selected Letters
(1981) 184: I know I fucked up your afternoon schedule.
1951
in
International Journal of Psycho-Analysis
XXXV (1954) 35: When a man says: “I got my day all fucked up,” he is [yet] fully aware of the primary sexual meaning of the word.
1952
in S. J. Perelman
Don’t Tread on Me
123: So many bothersome
and ridiculous complications with which you’d managed to fuck up your life here.
1953
M. Harris
Southpaw
143: Them goddam bastards would as soon f— up my ball club as not.
1956
T. T. Chamales
Never So Few
574: They fucked something up when they moved that piece.… They’re missing us.
1965
S. Yurick
Warriors
71: That fucked everything up, Hector thought.
1966–67
W. Stevens
Gunner
119 [refers to WWII]: It’s not going to do…anybody…any good if you go around fucking up the detail.
1968
W. Mares
Marine Machine
29: Mouse, the coffee’s cold! You’re a Kremlin spy sent here to fuck up my stomach.
1969
R. M. Stern
Brood of Eagles
341: Oh, I would have fucked it up for fair. I know that.
1974
P. Larkin
This Be the Verse
: They fuck you up, your mum and dad./They may not mean to, but they do./They fill you with the faults they had/And add some extra, just for you.
1984
J. Fuller
Fragments
23: Duds, the drill sergeants would call us.… Fuck up a two-car funeral.
1991
“R. Brown” & R. Angus
A.K.A. Narc
188: They’ll fuck this up like they fucked up everything else.
1998
Starr Report
VIII L: Ms. Lewinsky said she wanted two things from the President. The first was contrition: He needed to “acknowledge…that he helped fuck up my life.”
2000
C. Bushnell
Four Blondes
23: You really fucked it up.… You had a chance. We could have spent the summer together. You blew it.
2005
P. Jillette & M. D. Lynn
How to Cheat Your Friends at Poker
vi. 27: Don’t forget that cutting the deck doesn’t fuck up the order.

2
.
a
. Of a person: to blunder badly; to make a (serious) error; (
hence
) get oneself into trouble of any kind; to fail.

1943
in M. Morriss & R. Day
South Pacific Diary
(1996) 114: They… fucked up beautifully.
1945
in T. Shibutani
Derelicts of Company K
115: We always fuck up when we march.
1953
M. Harris
Southpaw
201: The first man that f—s up in this respect is going to get hit in the pocketbook, and hit hard.
1944–57
L. Atwell
Private
33: He f—ed up there too, so they sent him down to us in C Company.
1957
H. Simmons
Corner Boy
73: People will fugg up.
1961
G. Forbes
Goodbye to Some
53: I really fucked up. We were going way too fast.
1961
L. McMurtry
Horseman, Pass By
48: “You fucked up,” Hermy said.
1963
J. Ross
Dead Are Mine
87: Keep your nose clean and this will all be forgotten. Fuck up and you’re dead.
1964– 66
R. Stone
Hall of Mirrors
271: But in my journalistic opinion they’re gonna fuck up.
1971
D. Meggyesy
Out of Their League
189: I also watched how Ernie and Larry did and I must admit I was pleased when they made mistakes and fucked up.
1972
D. Halberstam
Best & Brightest
281 [refers
to 1963]: Americans in Vietnam…had come up with a slogan to describe the ARVN promotion system: “Fuck up and move up.”
1978
Rascoe & Stone
Who’ll Stop the Rain?
(film): “I’ve been waiting all my life to fuck up like this.” “Well, you’ve finally made the big time.”
1972–79
T. Wolfe
Right Stuff
221:
Falling behind
put you on the threshold of
fucking up
.
1982
C. Gino
Nurse’s Story
318: Maybe somebody fucked up.
1987
M. Piercy
Gone to Soldiers
631: I fucked up, I know it, I fucked up everything that counted, I know it, listen to me, I know it.
1987
J. D. Pistone
Donnie Bras-co
209: Tony, the responsibility I gave Donnie just now…if he fucks up, I’m a dead man.
1993
P. Roth
Operation Shylock
259: But if he gets actively involved, he fucks up everything. Jews don’t put trust in the bank, they have private trusts.
1998
E. Reid
If I Don’t Six
24: I’ve watched him on television kicking grass at refs, tossing his headset to the ground in fury, snapping clipboards and even smacking players in the facemask when they fuck up.
2002
D. Eggers
You Shall Know Our Velocity!
325: “They fucked up,” he said to me. “They fucked up and they’re hiding something.”
2006
“Iggy Pop” in L. McNeil & G. McCain
Please Kill Me
142: Coral had had enough of me. I was no longer happening. I was fucking up, and fucking up, and losing, and losing—and she could see it.