It has come to my attention that there is a problem, a linguistic problem, that some people who are not native English speakers are having with the word "Fuck."
Let's face it, even us so-called native English speakers can't agree on this word.
There are so many different pronunciations of it.
A posh, upper-class British twit type would pronounce it "Fark." As in, "Oh, fark; ah've burnt the farking plum duff, dontcha know."
Someone from Dublin would say it as "Foch" or perhaps "Fock" - as in "Oi don' give two bits of a floying fock if your nag has had a shoite on yez point!" or, translated phonetically for those of you reading with an American accent inside your heads - "Fook." Someone with an English internal reading voice would see the word "Fook" and rhyme it with "Book", which can sound utterly preposterous.
Of course, there is also the word "Feck". The most important thing to say about this version of the word is that it has no sexual connotations, therefore one would never proposition someone by saying "Fancy a feck, baby?"
Other than that, especially (nearly exclusively) in Ireland, it can be syntactically interchangeable with the word fuck. How cool is THAT.
This is exactly the kind of information one needs to have on hand if one is ever going to meet Gabriel Byrne, get distracted by the intensity of his gaze, and need something instant upon which to draw for conversational content. Example: "Gabriel - do you say 'feck', 'fuck', 'fook' or 'foch'?" I'm sure you'd have his undivided attention for the rest of the minute.
Of course, if you're lucky enough to be of Scottish descent, then you can use the word 'feck' with complete impunity, just as Robert Burns did in "Kellyburn Braes"
I hae been a Devil the feck o' my life,
Hey, and the rue grows bonie wi' thyme;
But ne'er was in hell till I met wi' a wife,
And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime.
Miserable old fucker he was, too.
