"Feck" (occasionally spelled "fek" or "feic") is a word that has several vernacular meanings and variations in Irish English, Scots, and

Middle English Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman Conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English pe ...

Irish English

* The most popular and widespread modern use of the term is as a slang expletive in Irish English, employed as a less serious alternative to the expletive "

fuck ''Fuck'' () is profanity in the English language that often refers to the act of sexual intercourse, but is also commonly used as an intensifier or to convey disdain. While its origin is obscure, it is usually considered to be first attested ...

" to express disbelief, surprise, pain, anger, or contempt. It notably lacks the sexual connotations that "fuck" has. * It is also used as Irish slang meaning "throw" (e.g. "he fecked the remote control across the table at me".) * It has also been used as a verb meaning "to steal" (e.g. "they had fecked cash out of the rector's room") or to discover a safe method of robbery or cheating.

Scots and Late Middle English

"Feck" is a form of , which is in turn the Scots cognate of the modern English word effect. However, this Scots noun has additional significance: # Efficacy; force; value; return # Amount; quantity (or a large amount/quantity) # The greater or larger part (when used with a

definite article In grammar, an article is any member of a class of dedicated words that are used with noun phrases to mark the identifiability of the referents of the noun phrases. The category of articles constitutes a part of speech. In English, both "the" ...

) From the first sense can be derived " feckless", meaning witless, weak, or ineffective. "Feckless" remains a part of

Modern English Modern English, sometimes called New English (NE) or present-day English (PDE) as opposed to Middle and Old English, is the form of the English language that has been spoken since the Great Vowel Shift in England England is a Count ...

and

Scottish English Scottish English is the set of varieties of the English language spoken in Scotland. The transregional, standardised variety is called Scottish Standard English or Standard Scottish English (SSE). Scottish Standard English may be defined ...

, and appears in a number of Scottish adages: :"Feckless folk are aye fain o ane anither." :"Feckless fools should keep canny tongues." In his 1881 short story '' Thrawn Janet'',

Robert Louis Stevenson Robert Louis Stevenson (born Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson; 13 November 1850 – 3 December 1894) was a Scottish novelist, essayist, poet and travel writer. He is best known for works such as ''Treasure Island'', ''Strange Case of Dr Jekyll ...

invokes the second sense of "feck" as cited above: :"He had a feck o' books wi' him—mair than had ever been seen before in a' that presbytery..." Robert Burns uses the third sense of "feck" in the final stanza of his 1792 poem "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

In the media

The

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is state-owned enterprise, publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded en ...

sitcom ''

Father Ted ''Father Ted'' is a sitcom created by Irish writers Graham Linehan and Arthur Mathews (writer), Arthur Mathews and produced by British production company Hat Trick Productions for British television channel Channel 4. It aired over three seri ...

'' (19951998) helped to popularise the use of "feck" outside of Ireland (particularly in the UK, where Channel 4 is based) through liberal use of the word by alcoholic priest Father Jack. In a 1998 interview on Nickelodeon, an appearance by the teenage Irish girl group B*Witched prompted a viewer complaint alleging that one of its members had said "fuck off" on air. Nickelodeon maintained that the singer had in fact said "feck off", which they described as "a phrase made popular by the Channel 4 sitcom ''Father Ted''", but the phrase was still found to be in breach of the ITC Programme Code and the complaint was thus upheld. In 2004, clothing retailer French Connection UK (best known for its infamous "FCUK" T-shirt) won a legal injunction in

Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...

that barred a local business from printing and selling a T-shirt marked "FCEK: The Irish Connection". In 2008, the Irish cider brand Magners received complaints relating to an advert it had posted around the UK in which a man tells bees to "feck off", with members of the public concerned that young children could be badly influenced by it. Magners claimed that the "feck off" mention in the advert was a "mild rebuff" to the bees rather than an expletive. The Advertising Standards Authority ruled that the poster was suitable for display.

References

Sources

* Walker, Colin S. K. ''Scottish Proverbs''.

Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...

: Birlinn Limited, 1996. * ''Webster's College Dictionary''. New York City: Random House, 1996. {{ISBN, 0-679-43886-6 * ''Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary''.

Springfield, Massachusetts Springfield is the most populous city in Hampden County, Massachusetts, United States, and its county seat. Springfield sits on the eastern bank of the Connecticut River near its confluence with three rivers: the western Westfield River, the ea ...

: G. & C. Merriam Company Co., 1913.
Irish Slang

Irish Dictionary Online
Father Ted English profanity Scots language Scottish English Interjections Irish slang English words

Irish English

Scots and Late Middle English

In the media

See also

References

Sources