There's something that's been on my mind for a while and maybe someone can shed some light on it.

Sometimes when a character exclaims "Fuck you", the recipient of usually the opposite sex retorts with a witty comeback like "In your dreams".

Now "Fuck you" is neither "Fuck yourself" nor "Fuck me", either of which as far as I know is the proper imperative form. "Fuck you" is grammatical gibberish and as such no response should make any sense.

Or?

 

It could be seen as an expressed wish of the character. The short form of "I want to fuck you", so to say. Then it would work.

On the other hand, such a very often used comeback is neither intelligent nor witty and there are more important things to think about...

 

Imagine 'Fuck them',' Fuck that' 'Fuck this' 'Fuck it', and then you can understand 'Fuck you' Not all words have one set meaning, and words and phrases that become common forms of expressing something other than their original meaning take on a secondary function. Best example would be fortuitously, which means coincidentally, however it has also taken on the meaning of fortunately due to it common and incorrect use be crap sports commentators like Mark Lawrenson.

So no, not an abuse, rather a progression of the English language

 

Yeah yeah we've all seen that flash animation showing how versatile the word fuck is. However in this specific case Fuck is a verb, an action.

Now ask yourself, [verb-in any shape] you, does that in any way match the response?
Painting you/paint you =/= paint yourself

Yes, what people tend to do is to shorten words, using a word long after it's purpose is gone and generally be an asshat about it but rarely before have I heard of someone rearranging it gramatically just to suit a cheesy one liner.

 

I have not seen the flash animation.

My point is that when you use fuck in 'fuck you', it isn't as the verb to fuck. The phrase takes on a different meaning. It is simply the evolution of language. Words and phrases to develop communal understanding amongst small social groups, and eventually onto larger ones if they become fashionable. There isnt even an issue as to whether or not the phrase 'fuck you' is grammatically incorrect.

 

It's like saying "damn," or "Hell." You aren't actually trying to cast the target's soul into eternal hellfire, or raise upper level demons. It's a verbal placeholder, essentially having no more meaning than a scream or saying "umm..."

Human interaction is MUCH more than a verbal exchange. That's why I dislike talking on the 'phone - you lose SO much information if you can't read expressions and body language. English might be the largest language in history, but it'll never be able to fill in all the gaps. It's constantly evolving, and the definitions of slang and buzzwords drift FAST.

How the phrase "Fuck you" went from an offer to an insult is beyond me, although I suspect that originally it was a conditional statement - like the old "Bugger me if I'd do that."

 

Nono you misunderstand me Banner & Randeemy
And Xiph0, didn't know it was that widespread

http://www.funfreepages.com/flash/the_word_fuck.php <- check it out for funsies

My confusion is not from the word itself, it's how it's being used in fics..

Man: Fuck you bitch
[Woman thinks he said "Fuck me you bitch" when clearly he did not]
Woman: You'd like that don't you?

How does that make sense? It's like kindergarden bullies laughing at fecal humour. "Haha you said shit". Yeah right. This isn't like making words shorter or even replacing letters with numbers. It's mutilating the basis of a language to fit a retarded joke. Because I can't see any other reason for there to be this misconception, ever.

If someone was forced to do this under threat of whipping house elves they could have atleast used a variation of

Suprised man: Whoa, well fuck me
Woman: In your dreams

Fuck in this way isn't meant in an aggressive way but by god it would atleast make a better pun. And from what I hear the fuck me phrase is used more by english anyway.

 

They've turned it into a flash animation? Fuck me. I remember downloading it as a small .wav file on my dinky little dial up modem back in... 1995 maybe. I don't think it was new even back then.

Youtube turned it up pretty quickly. God, the audio is still the same crappy quality it was a decade ago. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCcCzj_yRtk For extra bemusement, read the comments.

Does anyone know who's speaking it? George Carlin?

After ten years it's lost a lot of it's shock value, but it's still a classic.

Yak.

 

I like the 'Go outside and play hide and go fuck yourself' one .

Aekiel

 

In which context?

 

I never said any different

Just saying Fuck you =/= Have sex with me

 

Isn't Fuck just a curse word? I know that it did have a meaning, but that it has been lost along the way. We still do use it for it's original meaning, as in, "Fancy a fuck" but not all that often, and only when folk are being paticulary crass. Same as shit really... We say shit when we drop something... how does that make sense? And the delightful word twat, meaning a girls naughty bits, which is also used in the way prick is used to insult someone, but also as another meaning of the word batter, or beat up, "I'm going to twat him!" Which brought about another word, "Twatted" (twat in past tense) which concidering it is a female organ really makes little to no sense.

A lot of the inuendos of, "Fuck you" "Yes please" are used by men and woman alike. I mean, what is a speech or an argument if it isn't laced with innuendo at every turn? boring is what it is.

 

The "In your dreams" response makes no grammatical sense. Simply because many, if not all, people will understand your point if you say "Fuck you." Of course, this does mostly depend on the tone and pitch of your voice.

 

Consider that "Fuck" comes from the germanic "Flicken", (which also gives us "to flick") which originally meant "to strike". "Kill" itself used to simply mean "to hit", and it's meaning got stronger as the original word, "mordor" evolved into "murder" and got a much more specialized meaning. "Kill" moved in to fill the gap. Similarly, "flicken" evolved into its own more specialized meanings.

More than likely, "Fuck you" has its origins in a phrase meaning something along the lines of "May you be stricken!/May you be fucked." "Fuck", as it relates to sex, has never had a positive connotation, and the phrase probably has a slight undertone of "May you be raped" instead, especially given the meaning of the word it evolved from.

I've always had a problem with people retorting to "Fuck you" with "In your dreams" or "You'd like that, wouldn't you?" as well. It doesn't make any sense in context. I've never had a problem with "Fuck you" since it should always be taken as a unit, and not a phrase (don't let that little space between the words fool you). Besides, we have quite a few expressions in English that don't follow standard grammar because they are based on older, now defunct, grammatical forms.

Also, by analogy, "Fuck you" evolved along the lines of "Damn you" - likely because in Christian countries, saying "Damn you" was much more serious back then, than hoping for someone's being struck/fucked. Most people didn't necessarily want God to damn somone just because they pissed them off, but they still wanted them to suffer a little.

 

.....

Seriously?

.....

 

People have been overthinking this since the OP. No one knows for certain where fuck comes from. Etymologists (who know more about the subject than any of us) just can't tell. As always, Wikipedia has more info on fuck than I care to know about.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuck
http://www.answers.com/fuck&r=67

Cursing isn't supposed to make sense.

Yak.

 

And history comes full circle with the phrase, "I'd hit it".