Talk:fuckup

Ineffective person?

Not sure about sense 3, "ineffective person"...? I would think it rather means "someone who is fucked up", a messed up person. Equinox ◑ 21:59, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

 Done I have "BEEN BOLD" and made the change. Equinox ◑ 03:21, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

(Pardon my language here) 1) An actual "fuckup" cannot be a successful/effective/etc person. However, a "fucked up" person can easily be a successful/effective/etc person. 2) The specific nature of the "fuckup" Kennedy mentions is detailed in the full quote. I think it's a good example that should be kept in its entirety for several reasons: 1) The average young person doesn't have a lot of experience with personal conversations between people from the 1960's. Most of our knowledge of that period is based on movies, television and books. In this conversation, we can see a real, private conversation from the 1960's. 2) I would not have guessed that fuckup was a term used at that time to describe a bad/inconvenient situation like what's described here. I originally imagined the word to originate in a less civilized era like the 1980's or 1990's. 3) Through this example, we can see a bona fide example of what qualifies as a fuckup in the mind of a person who is household name throughout the world. 4) With the full context, you get a feel the tone of the usage of this word- vulgar, abusive, ugly, manipulative, harsh- in a way that "half the conversation" just doesn't give you. This is a dressing down par excellence, and the word "fuckup" is the cherry on top. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 14:09, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

I would hire you to write for my Sunday supplement but I won't believe your actual claims without evidence. Equinox ◑ 18:07, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Some examples on point here:
Fucked up and effective person: “Like Lyndon Johnson, as fucked up as he was, there's this picture you can find of him listening to...a tape describing what it's like to be a soldier on the front line of Vietnam and he's sobbing because he's the president and he's putting kids on the front line and it's shattering him that he's causing that kind of pain for his own people.” [1] "As effective as he was as a legislator, he was also incredibly insecure. ... he had a recuring dream of being paralyzed.... His mother had withheld her love.... Here was a guy insecure, fearing not being loved, at times incapable of making a decision and yet when he went into action and did what he did, there was no one more effective than Lyndon Johnson..."[2]
fuckup definitions: "A failure, someone who really messes up."[3] "a person who bungles or botches, especially a habitual bungler."[4]
We might say LBJ was fucked up, but in my understanding, I don't think he would be considered a fuckup just because he was fucked up. You could even say LBJ fucked up with regard to Vietnam [5]. But the definition "a person who is fucked up" would make Lyndon Johnson a fuckup, and I think he was just fucked up and was not really a fuckup per se. (Also I would like to say that I can be wantonly insulted by others, but it is not allowed that I return any insult. I have been chided and accused of various kinds of illicit behavior by the long-time admins and users and by the anonymous IP trolls, but in the end none of that interaction is germane to the task at hand which is to find out what the best definition or best content for Wikipedia/Wiktionary etc might be. My foibles are on display for anybody to see, but I am also the user that changed the main entry from Xizang Zizhiqu to Tibet Autonomous Region and opened up a minor wing of English language terminology that was being aggressively ignored. It sucks that others would see me as a Sunday column crackpot despite the fact that I'm clearly doing a great job here. I got a high score on the reading section of the GRE, so I may have some worthwhile insights at some points in discussion about English, not to say that I'm always right or even often right- more like "sometimes may have part of a relevant thought".) --Geographyinitiative (talk) 15:48, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

@Equinox I will give an example. If I were to respond to this kind of insult with "Better to write the Sunday column than the fifth column.", especially to one of the admins that don't like me and watch my edits, I could be banned as making a personal attack. Can I be allowed to write this sentence in response to your post within the rules of this website? But I wouldn't do it anyway. Luckily I am not here to trade barbs with people- I am here to make a dictionary. This was the state of Wiktionary when I got here: [6]. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 01:10, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

@Geographyinitiative: I don't know, anything can offend anyone now, but I won't ban you for it. Equinox ◑ 07:33, 2 December 2020 (UTC)