Talk:m*therfucker

RFD discussion: September–December 2018

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m*therfucker

If this exists at all, it's a very rare misspelling. Chuck Entz (talk) 18:49, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

Amazing! It took me 20 seconds to work out what was wrong with this word. Maybe one could argue that the presence of an asterisk anywhere in a word is a semantics-neutral "cuss marker". Or maybe we could delete this bullshit. Equinox ◑ 19:30, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

Delete Highly obscure misspelling. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 19:47, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

Delete, as an asterisk can be used anywhere to indicate omission of letters, and such usage is already noted at *#Punctuation mark. — SGconlaw (talk) 20:58, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

An intentional misspelling? I'm surprised it's not motherf*cker. Delete. DonnanZ (talk) 23:44, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

• This reminds me of Talk:nigg*r—a bowdlerization where the asterisk is intuitively in the wrong place. But unlike nigg*r, this one exists—examples are easy to find on Usenet [1] [2] [3]. It's certainly a weird spelling, but what's the basis for calling it a misspelling? We have other bowdlerizations such as f*ck, s**thead, and c**t. Is the argument here that a bowdlerization is a misspelling if the offensive root of the word ("fuck" in this case) remains intact? —Granger (talk · contribs) 01:03, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

I would say there is no basis for calling it a misspelling. If one spelled it like this it would be entirely purposeful. DTLHS (talk) 01:05, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

I agree. So, while the current contents of the entry (labelling it a rare misspelling of another asterisked spelling) should be deleted, there should be an entry for this as an alternative spelling, I think... or at least, we seem to generally have such entries, as Granger notes. - -sche (discuss) 04:14, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

• Keep in RFD; this is not a misspelling per Granger, DTLHS and -sche. The spelling is intentional. It could be deleted if WT:CFI is changed, and then, f*ck would probably go as well. Weird spellings of a somewhat different sort are in Category:English leet, e.g. n00b. There is no tremendous value in the entry, but it does seem to meet WT:CFI as an alternative spelling, bowdlerized spelling, or the like. --Dan Polansky (talk) 18:22, 5 October 2018 (UTC)
• Comment. I would say that it is virtually impossible in any given instance to tell whether this is a misspelling or an intentional unexpected positioning of the asterisk. If intentional, it is equally hard to judge the reason. Misunderstanding? Irony? Mihia (talk) 17:39, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

  I would like to say I do not see how this could be an *un*intentional positioning / *mis*spelling, but a guy I knew once tried to say "tell them to 'go bleep yourselves'" while still half-asleep and thus said "tell them to 'bleep fuck yourselves.'" Accidentally censored the wrong word in his own speech. So I suppose anything is possible. EveeD08 (talk) 07:35, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

Assuming it's intentional, then, what do you think might be the reason? Mihia (talk) 23:27, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

Delete, too weird. Fay Freak (talk) 20:06, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

@Fay Freak: Is there any relation of what you said to WT:CFI? Or is this an override of WT:CFI? --Dan Polansky (talk) 10:51, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

@Dan Polansky “Too weird” is one of the synonyms of “it seems not to fit the Criteria for Inclusion.” Fay Freak (talk) 17:24, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

@Fay Freak Interesting. Which part of WT:CFI does it fail? --Dan Polansky (talk) 17:26, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

@Dan Polansky Mentioned already by others. Also, it is SOP of motherfucker and the English infix -*- (“used to censor words”); it is not lexicalized in the given form. Also it is against the nature of a dictionary to include censored words. Fay Freak (talk) 17:36, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

@Fay Freak "Mentioned ... by others" is unspecific; is the rationale that it is a rare misspelling? Furthermore, as for censored words, should f*ck or even fuck be excluded, and is it per WT:CFI? --Dan Polansky (talk) 17:43, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

@Dan Polansky Well you might know yourself what others have suggested. Myself rephrasing it probably does not help and could misrepresent it, so I do not specify. Yes f*ck should be excluded for what I said. Why fuck, what kind of question is that … Fay Freak (talk) 17:46, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

Well, you said "it is against the nature of a dictionary to include censored words", and fuck is a word that is often censored, as evidenced by the existence of f*ck, so here's the relevance. Now, which portion of WT:CFI leads to exclusion of f*ck? --Dan Polansky (talk) 18:11, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

@Dan Polansky Could you actually believe with “censored words” I mean fuck and not f*ck?

It told you in the case of motherfucker which SOP it is: f*ck is an SOP of fuck and the English infix -*- (“used to censor words”). SOP words spelled in one like swiftly from swift + -ly are included but the star is not the same kind of affix, it is not derivational nor inflectional (but a kind of addition, may you call it “affix” or not, that does not create lexical or grammatical occurrences). What kind of “eye dialect spelling” is fucc, @Suzukaze-c? I am not aware of a different pronunciation spelled thus. Crips replace ⟨ck⟩ with ⟨cc⟩ because the former is interpreted as “crip killer”, and memesters mimick it. Then there are words you can find with 🅱️ especially instead of C - should those be included if attested durably? What’s special about “*” spellings? It’s 🅱️ringy to in🅱️lude asterisk-censored words. Fay Freak (talk) 18:25, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

My take on this is that the lexical part of m*therfucker is motherfucker, and that the asterisk is more like punctuation or formatting that's applied to any word that might be subject to content filters. In the case of f*ck, this seems to be a set formulation that has become lexicalized (I suspect that it's sometimes used even where content filters aren't an issue). In the case of m*therfucker, however, the asterisk is misplaced as a one-off joke- analogous to putting a fig-leaf on the mouth of a statue and leaving the genitals exposed. The fact that a few people have independently come up with this idea doesn't make it a set phrase. Chuck Entz (talk) 19:36, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Deleted: I count 5:2 in favour of deletion. — SGconlaw (talk) 06:51, 27 December 2018 (UTC)