The F Word

Having time on my hands means that I can read much more and as my personal favourite topic were I to be asked onto Mastermind is 'Mindless Trivia', I of course followed an internet string that began with the words 'First Use of the F-word in Recorded Literature'.

Whilst the history is fascinating enough it is what it all portends that made me laugh like I hadn't for many years. And given our present situation in lockdown, what we all need is a darn good belly laugh.  Here's the headline:

"WAN FUKKIT FUNLING" —

500-year-old manuscript contains one of earliest known uses of the “F-word”

The Bannatyne Manuscript is an anthology of some 400 medieval Scottish poems.

Whilst the spelling is not contemporary, the feeling is perfectly encapsulated in those three words which mean.... well, er, this is where it gets tricky for these words came about during a bout of 'Flyting' between two gentlemen by the name of William Dunbar and Walter Kennedy.

Flyting is a poetic genre in Scotland—essentially a poetry slam or rap battle, in which participants exchange creative insults with as much verbal pyrotechnics (doubling and tripling of rhymes, lots of alliteration) as they can muster. (It's a safe bet Shakespeare excelled at this art form.)

Dunbar and Kennedy supposedly faced off for a flyting in the court of James IV of Scotland around 1500, and their exchange was set down for posterity in Bannatyne's manuscript. In the poem, Dunbar makes fun of Kennedy's Highland dialect, for instance, as well as his personal appearance, and he suggests his opponent enjoys sexual intercourse with horses. Kennedy retaliates with attacks on Dunbar's diminutive stature and lack of bowel control, suggesting his rival gets his inspiration from drinking "frogspawn" from the waters of a rural pond. You get the idea.

And then comes the historic moment: an insult containing the phrase "wan fukkit funling," marking the earliest known surviving record of the F-word.

It all sounds wonderful! I wish I had been there but as the manuscript itself was put together when this Mr. Bannatyne was locked down with the plague (rather like as now except that the plague killed somewhere between 30% and 80% of populations that became infected), perhaps not. In any event this brings to mind immediately Monty Python's Oscar Wilde sketch which although really funny also was based (although very loosely) on real events that regularly took place.

Now this is flyting!