15 Things You Motherf*ckers Didn’t Know About the Word ‘Motherf*cker’
Mothers have been fucked since time immemorial, but it wasn’t until 1889 that some court clerk was forced to write down the dirty word for perhaps the first time. From there, it took you motherfuckers by storm…
1889: The First Recorded Motherfucking
Records from the Texas Court of Appeals have immortalized the word in the case of Levy vs. State, with a witness describing a defendant as being called a “God damned mother-f—cking, bastardly son-of-a-bitch.”
Texas Printed the Word Uncensored a Few Years Later
In 1898, the Texas Court of Appeals recorded a defendant apparently arguing that he should be excused of murder because the victim had called him a “mother-fucking son-of-a-bitch.”
1917: The First Recorded Motherfucker
A Black man who had been recruited to the armed forces wrote an anonymous letter to a Mississippi newspaper, describing his frustrations with being treated like shit by his government, then asked to lay down his life for it. He wrote: “Dear Sir, It affords this soldier boy which you have sent so far away from home a great deal of pleasure to write a few lines to let you know that you low-down Mother Fuckers can put a gun in our hands but who is able to take it out?”
He went on to essentially threaten insurrection. When his identity was discovered, he was court-martialed and sentenced to 10 years of hard labor.
That Guy Didn’t Mince His Words. But You Can!
A “minced oath” is the euphemistic little wordplay you do to not actually say a bad word. It dates back to at least ancient Greek mythology, when the Cretan king Rhadamanthus made his subjects swear by the ram or the goose, instead of the gods. Anyway, here are some semi-polite ways to say “motherfucker”: motherhumper, motherfugger, mothersucker, mothertrucker, motherfreaker, motherlover, fothermucker, monkey-fighter, motherflower, motherflipper, motherkisser.
Make Up Your Mind, Norman
Norman Mailer used the minced oath “mutherfugger” for a while, but seems to have switched over to “motherfucker” in 1967’s Why Are We in Vietnam? In those days, it meant something closer to “annoying.” As Mailer put it, the word “was not used to intimidate” but rather to “fill certain spaces in the thought waves.”
Fuck Yeah, Kurt
Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five uses the word precisely once, which has caused libraries and schools to be periodically inundated with requests to ban it. Vonnegut has said, “Ever since that word was published, way back in 1969, children have been attempting to have intercourse with their mothers. When it will stop no one knows.”
A Most Diverse Curse
Linguistically speaking, “motherfucker” is a participle that can superpower a phrase in unique ways, depending on the part of speech. Need to denote masculinity? Use it as an adjective! Need to denote treachery? Use it as a verb! Need to deploy the worst insult in the English language? Use it as a noun! Except in some circumstances…
Consider Me Miles Davis
Around World War II, people started using “motherfucker” as kind of a tongue-in-cheek compliment. In the jazz community in particular, it’s long been downright flattering. Legend has it that upon meeting his future drummer, Mino Cinelu, Miles Davis “grabbed his arm and said, ‘You’re a motherfucker.’ Cinelu thanked Miles for the compliment.”
Musicians Needed to Disguise the Word for a While There, Though
In the 1930s, musicians seem to have universally settled on the minced oath “mother for you,” as in Memphis Minnie’s 1935 song “Dirty Mother for You,” Roosevelt Sykes’ 1936 song of the same title and Dirty Red’s 1947 twist “Mother Fuyer.” Singer Stick McGhee wrote a song he called “Drinking Wine, Motherfucker,” but wisely changed it to “Drinking Wine, Spo-Dee-O-Dee,” garnering him a massive hit.
It Finally Went Mainstream in 1969
The first mainstream rock song to use the word was 1965’s Kick Out the Jams by MC5. Rob Tyner yells “It’s time to kick out the jams, motherfuckers!” in the live title track, which didn’t go over well once people figured it out. It was swiftly re-released with “brothers and sisters” hastily dubbed over the naughty word.
Meanwhile, Mid-20th century literature really embraced the word
The 1945 Black poetry collection The Life includes the line, “I love him madly, he’s my motherfucking man,” and the 1973 novel Fogerty & Co contains the line, “What a motherfucking man he was, Shamus!” 1971’s Shaft shows just how ubiquitous it was, popularizing the phrase “bad mother” as a badge of honor.
Lenny Bruce
Comedian Lenny Bruce was first arrested for obscenity in 1961, after saying “cocksucker” and talking about cum a lot. It wasn’t until 1964 that he was arrested by undercover cops at a Greenwich Village comedy show for saying “motherfucker.” At his trial, the prosecution had a minister ask, “To the uninitiated, to the unsophisticated … might someone understand the word ‘motherfucker’ as having to do with mothers and fucking?” Bruce was convicted and sentenced to four months of hard labor, but died before completing his sentence. The conviction was later overturned. Congratulations!
George Carlin
George Carlin was arrested alongside Bruce in 1962 (for telling cops he didn’t believe in government-issued IDs). A decade later, Carlin was arrested for obscenity himself, after doing his “Seven Dirty Words” routine in Milwaukee. The case was dismissed by a judge who was clearly flustered about having to hear the words “shit,” “piss,” “fuck,” “cunt,” “cocksucker,” “motherfucker” and “tits,” but conceded that they were protected under freedom of speech laws.
It’s More Than Just a Catchphrase for Samuel L. Jackson
In a 2013 speech for the American Institute for Stuttering, Jackson said that repeating the word helped him get over his stutter as a kid. He still struggles with a stutter, and says he uses the word “motherfucker” like an antidote: “I say it, and it helps, like even if I just say it to myself, under my breath. I don’t stutter when I say that word.”
