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Fuck revisited
Tony McEnery & Zhonghua Xiao, Lancaster University.

1. Introduction

This paper is a follow up to the investigation of McEnery, Baker and Hardie (2000) into the
use of the word fuck in spoken British English. Both that paper and this are based on the
British National Corpus. However, at the time of writing in 2000, the analysis of fuck in the
written BNC had not been completed, hence the 2000 paper focussed on spoken English
alone. In doing so, it explored the way fuck varied with respect to a range of meta-data
encoded in the spoken BNC, principally age, sex and social class. We have now explored the
written section of the BNC, and have explored the distribution of fuck with respect to a subset
of the metadata encoded in the written BNC, namely domain, author gender, author age,
audience gender, audience age, audience level, reception status, medium of text and date of
creation. As some of these features have clear analogues in the spoken BNC (most clearly age
and sex) comparisons between the work presented here and the earlier work on spoken
English will be presented wherever possible. Throughout, unless otherwise stated, references
to the frequency of usage of features in spoken language are taken from McEnery, Baker and
Hardie (ibid).

2. Domain

This section examines the distribution of fuck in written language. Table 1 compares 9 written
domains encoded in the BNC.
Table 1: Domains of written section of the BNC
Domain Words RF1 NF2 LL ratio Sig. level
Imaginative 19664309 1485 75.52
Arts 7014792 208 29.65
Leisure 8991740 98 10.9
World affairs 15243340 73 4.79
Commerce/business 6668357 29 4.35 2827.945 <0.001
Social science 12186378 45 3.69
Applied science 7341375 21 2.86
Belief/thought 3035896 3 0.99
Nat./pure science 3746901 0 0

Clearly, the distribution of fuck is statistically significant by domain in written

English. Forms of fuck are used most frequently in imaginative writing, probably because
texts of this category are primarily fiction which contain a lot of reports of speech and are
more akin to spoken language. This is followed by the domains of arts and leisure. In
contrast, fuck occurs rarely in the domains of belief/thought and is non-existent in
natural/pure science. This distribution pattern also applies to the individual word forms of
fuck.

3. Gender of author

One might imagine that author gender would have a similar effect on the pattern of uses of
fuck to that of speaker gender. In Baker, McEnery and Hardie (2000), males were found to use
the word fuck much more frequently than females. This tendency does indeed seem to
translate into writing also. As can be seen from Table 2, male authors use fuck more than
twice as frequently as female authors. This difference is significant at the level of p<0.001
(LL=162.124, 1 df). The difference between the two genders is also quantitatively significant
for each word form, though the significance level may vary, with fucking demonstrating the
greatest contrast. In terms of word forms, while female authors appear to prefer fuck to fucking

1
RF denotes the observed frequency of the feature in the BNC.
2
NF denotes the normalised frequency per million words of the feature in the BNC.

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more than male authors (see Table 4), the difference is not statistically significant (LL=0.439,
1 df). The proportion and rank of word forms show a very similar distribution pattern across
author gender (Table 3). The fluctuation in the normalized frequencies can be discarded
(LL=1.162, 3 df).
Table 2: Gender of author:
Form Gender Words RF NF LL ratio Sig. level
fuck Male 31586324 486 15.39 28.625 <0.001
Female 15497994 147 9.49
fucked Male 31586324 78 2.47 7.549 0.007
Female 15497994 20 1.29
fucks Male 31586324 14 0.44 6.503 0.029
Female 15497994 1 0.06
fucking Male 31586324 709 22.45 128.474 <0.001
Female 15497994 132 8.52
fucker(s) Male 31586324 35 1.11 7.142 0.012
Female 15497994 6 0.39
All forms Male 31586324 1322 41.85 162.124 <0.001
Female 15497994 306 19.74
Table 3: Proportion and rank of word forms by male and female authors
Gender Form Proportion (%) Rank
fucking 53.63 1
fuck 36.76 2
Male fucked 5.90 3
fucker(s) 2.65 4
fucks 1.06 5
fucking 43.14 2
fuck 48.04 1
Female fucked 6.54 3
fucker(s) 1.96 4
fucks 0.33 5
Table 4: Comparison the normalized frequencies of word forms across gender
Form Male Female LL ratio Sig. level LL ratio Sig. level
fucking 22.45 8.52 0.439 0.570
fuck 15.39 9.49
fucked 2.47 1.29 1.162 0.867
fucker(s) 1.11 0.39 0.680 1.000
fucks 0.44 0.06

4. Age of author

Author age in written language is a sociolinguistic variable comparable to speaker age in

spoken language and may, therefore, influence the distribution of fuck. Table 5 compares age
groups of authors in the BNC written section by word form.
As can be seen, the differences in the frequencies of fuck between authors of different
age groups are statistically significant when all word forms are taken as a whole. A
comparison by word form shows that except for the two very infrequent words fucks (3
instances) and fucker(s) (9 instances), all of the other word forms demonstrate a significant
variation between age groups.
While young people also use fuck a lot in written language as they do in spoken
language, the pattern of using fuck in written language appears to be different from that in
spoken language in spite of some similarities, as shown in Table 6. In written English, the age
group 60+ uses fuck least frequently. However, authors aged 25-24 use fuck most frequently,
followed by the age group 45-59. While authors aged 45-59 use fuck slightly more often than
those aged 34-45, the difference is not statistically significant (LL=1.721, p=0.217). Like
speakers under 15, authors of the same age group use fuck are amongst the most frequent users
of the word fuck, though the frequency of usage is not as high as in the spoken language.

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Surprisingly, people aged 15-24 use fuck less frequently than expected in written English,
though this age group is the most frequent user of fuck in spoken English.
Table 5: Age of speaker
Form Age Words RF NF LL ratio Sig. level
0-14 581962 3 5.15
15-24 437149 3 6.86
fuck 25-34 1325516 97 73.18 178.234 <0.001
35-44 2813226 32 11.37
45-59 2847335 36 12.64
60+ 2451519 14 5.71
0-14 581962 0 0
15-24 437149 0 0
fucked 25-34 1325516 20 15.09 46.263 <0.001
35-44 2813226 5 1.78
45-59 2847335 11 3.86
60+ 2451519 0 0
0-14 581962 0 0
15-24 437149 0 0
fucks 25-34 1325516 1 0.75 3.286 0.778
35-44 2813226 1 0.36
45-59 2847335 1 0.35
60+ 2451519 0 0
0-14 581962 12 20.62
15-24 437149 5 11.44
fucking 25-34 1325516 87 65.63 121.236 <0.001
35-44 2813226 36 12.8
45-59 2847335 41 14.4
60+ 2451519 21 8.57
0-14 581962 2 3.44
15-24 437149 0 0
fucker(s) 25-34 1325516 3 2.66 7.216 0.129
35-44 2813226 1 0.36
45-59 2847335 4 1.4
60+ 2451519 1 0.41
0-14 581962 17 29.21
15-24 437149 8 18.3
All forms 25-34 1325516 208 156.92 336.394 <0.001
35-44 2813226 75 26.66
45-59 2847335 93 32.66
60+ 2451519 36 14.68

Table 6: Comparison of spoken and written languages

Age group Spoken Written
NF Rank NF Rank
0-14 851.01 2 29.21 3
15-24 1549.26 1 18.3 5
25-34 618.65 3 156.92 1
35-44 74.99 5 26.66 4
45-59 138.86 4 32.66 2
60+ 18.71 6 14.68 6

5. Gender of audience

The BNC classifies the gender of the intended audience of writing contained in the corpus into
four types: male, female, mixed and unknown. In this section, we will only consider the first
three categories. Table 7 compares the use of different word forms across gender.

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Table 7: Gender of audience
Form Gender Words RF NF LL ratio Sig. level
Male 2451934 21 8.56 0.521 0.471
fuck Female 6235502 44 7.06
Mixed 54289029 591 10.89 --- ---
Male 2451934 17 6.93 28.091 <0.001
fucked Female 6235502 3 0.48
Mixed 54289029 90 1.66 --- ---
Male 2451934 0 0 --- ---
fucks Female 6235502 0 0
Mixed 54289029 14 0.26 -- --
Male 2451934 24 9.79 1.405 0.236
fucking Female 6235502 45 7.22
Mixed 54289029 701 12.91 --- ---
Male 2451934 0 0 --- ---
fucker(s) Female 6235502 0 0
Mixed 54289029 43 0.79 --- ---
Male 2451934 62 25.29 10.270 0.001
All forms Female 6235502 92 14.75
Mixed 54289029 1439 26.51 --- ---

As can be seen from the table, when word forms are considered together, the
difference between audience genders is statistically significant. However, fucked is the only
word form which, in itself, shows a significant difference of distribution across writing
intended for males and writing intended for females. Fucked is frequently used as the past
form of the word with its literal meaning. Writing with an intended female audience contains
significantly less occurrences of fucked than writings for an intended male audience. Other
word forms (especially fuck and fucking) used for emphasis do not show a significant contrast.
Interestingly, writing intended for a mixed audience is quite similar to writing
intended for a male audience in terms of distribution patterns of fuck (LL=0.134, df=1,
p=0.714) when all word forms are taken together. The difference in distributions of fuck in
writing intended for females and that for a mixed audience is statistically significant at the
level p<0.001 (LL=35.363, 1 df). With respect to individual word forms, the difference
between writing with an intended male audience and writing intended for a mixed audience is
not statistically significant while the difference between writing with an intended female
audience and writing intended for a mixed audience is significant for fuck and fucking. For
fucked, the difference of writing for the three types of audience is significant, though writing
intended for a mixed audience is more akin to writing with an intended female audience.

6. Age of audience

This section examines the possible influence of audience age on the pattern of uses of fuck in
written English. There are four age groups for audience: adults, teenagers, children and
unknown. We will consider the first three categories. Table 8 gives the frequencies of fuck
across these age groups.
As can be seen from the table, writing for adults contains nearly twice as many uses
of fuck as writing for teenagers. Fuck occurs in writing for adults over 7 times as frequently as
in writing for children. This difference is significant at the level of p<0.001. In terms of word
forms, the greatest contrast is in fucking, followed by fuck while fucked, fucks and fuckers do
not show a significant contrast because of the low overall frequencies of these word forms.3
This finding is in line with the social convention that writing for children should avoid
swearwords in an attempt to influence their linguistic behaviour, i.e. to encourage them not to
use the words.4

3
There are only 2.73, 0.22 and 1.76 instances of fucked, fucks and fucker(s) per million words.
4
The desire to shield children from swearwords is apparent in other aspects of British public life, such as
the decision not to broadcast such words on the television before 9 p.m. Such a decision has clearly had
little influence on the linguistic habits of children, as shown in table 6, and teenagers themselves, it
would appear, are not in favour of being shielded from such language - a recent web-based poll amongst
children below the age of 15 showed that nearly half of them (46.7%) believed that there should be

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Table 8: Age of audience
Form Age Words RF NF LL ratio Sig. level
Adult 82335639 784 9.52
fuck Teenager 1697721 10 5.89 14.482 0.001
Child 969382 1 1.03
Adult 82335639 128 1.55
fucked Teenager 1697721 2 1.18 0.755 0.712
Child 969382 0 0
Adult 82335639 18 0.22
fucks Teenager 1697721 0 0 0.110 1.000
Child 969382 0 0
Adult 82335639 960 11.66
fucking Teenager 1697721 7 4.12 22.217 <0.001
Child 969382 2 2.06
Adult 82335639 48 0.58
fucker(s) Teenager 1697721 2 1.18 1.412 0.347
Child 969382 0 0
Adult 82335639 1938 23.54
All forms Teenager 1697721 21 12.37 37.603 <0.001
Child 969382 3 3.09

7. Level of audience

The BNC annotation scheme includes information pertaining to the levels of intended
readership for a document, thus enabling us to explore the pattern of uses of fuck in this
dimension. Table 9 compares the distribution of fuck in writings for different levels of
audience.
Table 9: Level of audience
Form Level Words RF NF LL Sig. LL ratio Sig. level
ratio level
Low 17126603 229 13.37 7.998 0.005
fuck Medium 43837214 465 10.61 118.407 <0.001
High 23967568 101 4.21 --- ---
Low 17126603 32 1.87 0.086 0.660
fucked Medium 43837214 77 1.76 10.527 0.005
High 23967568 21 0.88 --- ---
Low 17126603 5 0.29 0.384 0.826
fucks Medium 43837214 9 0.21 0.853 0.671
High 23967568 4 0.17 --- ---
Low 17126603 243 14.19 2.73 0.098
fucking Medium 43837214 547 12.48 52.212 <0.001
High 23967568 179 7.47 --- ---
Low 17126603 13 0.76 0.001 0.980
fucker(s) Medium 43837214 33 0.75 12.749 0.002
High 23967568 4 0.17 --- ---
All Low 17126603 522 30.48 9.711 0.002
forms Medium 43837214 1131 25.8 178.857 <0.001
High 23967568 309 12.89 --- ---

It can be seen that the rate of usage of fuck declines with a higher audience level. As
far as word forms are concerned, the difference between audience levels is statistically
significant for all words expect fucks, which occurs rarely. The greatest contrast is found for
fuck (LL=118.407). It is also interesting to note that the medium level is closer to the low level
than to the high level. Except for fuck, the difference between different audience levels is not

swearwords in young adult novels because normal teenagers swear and to avoid using swearwords
would be unnatural. (http://www.dream-tools.com/tools/polls.mv?view+youngadultspeech, accessed on
9th December 2002).

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statistically significant. While it is not clear why fuck shows a significant contrast, we
speculate that the contrast is due to its high overall frequency. When all word forms are taken
as a whole, the difference between medium and low levels is significant (LL=9.711, 1 df). But
this significance level is weighted by the marked contrast for fuck.

8. Reception status

In this section, we will examine the potential relationship between reception status and the
pattern of usage of fuck. The BNC classifies written texts into four types in terms of their
reception status: high, medium, low and unknown. We will discard cases where reception
status is unknown. As can been seen from Table 10, whether we consider the word forms of
fuck separately or together, the difference in the distribution of fuck across reception status is
statistically significant. In this case, medium reception status appears to be closer to high than
low status. In terms of word forms, the difference between high and medium reception
statuses is only significant for fucks and fucking.
Table 10: Reception status
Form Level Words RF NF LL Sig. LL ratio Sig. level
ratio level
High 24138350 278 11.52 1.353 0.245
fuck Medium 31885282 402 12.61 73.179 <0.001
Low 16488041 83 5.03 --- ---
High 24138350 40 1.66 0.776 0.381
fucked Medium 31885282 63 1.98 8.456 0.015
Low 16488041 15 0.91 --- ---
High 24138350 11 0.46 7.357 0.007
fucks Medium 31885282 3 0.09 7.077 0.025
Low 16488041 4 0.24 --- ---
High 24138350 402 16.65 6.252 0.012
fucking Medium 31885282 447 14.02 179.914 <0.001
Low 16488041 60 3.64 --- ---
High 24138350 13 0.54 3.006 0.083
fucker(s) Medium 31885282 30 0.94 9.681 0.008
Low 16488041 4 0.24 --- ---
All High 24138350 744 30.82 0.639 0.424
forms Medium 31885282 945 29.64 245.785 <0.001
Low 16488041 166 10.07 --- ---

We can get a vague picture of the pattern of usage of fuck across reception status by
sorting by normalized frequencies, as shown in Table 11. The table by itself does not show a
pattern of fuck usage. However, if we combine Tables 10and 11 and take statistical
significance into consideration, we are able to see clearly the pattern of usage for fuck across
reception status.
Table 11: Distribution pattern of fuck by reception status
Row Form High Medium Low
1 Fuck 2 1 3
2 fucked 2 1 3
3 Fucks 1 3 2
4 fucking 1 2 3
5 fucker(s) 2 1 3
6 All forms 1 2 3

Table 10 shows that the difference between high and medium reception statuses is
not statistically significant for fuck (p=0.245), fucked (p=0.381) and fucker (p=0.083), hence
High and Medium in rows 1, 2 and 5 in Table 11 can be swapped, i.e. High (1), Medium (2)
and Low (3). Note, however, that the ranks of High and Medium cannot be inverted, because
the inverted order cannot explain the statistical significance as shown by fucks (p=0.007) and
fucking (p=0.012). As the difference between high and medium reception statuses is
significant for fucks and fucking, High and Medium cannot be swapped in rows 3 and 4.

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However, in row 3, Medium and Low can be swapped (i.e. High (1), Medium (2) and Low (3))
because the difference between these two categories is not statistically significant (LL=1.551,
1 df, p=0.213). These rearrangements clearly present the pattern of usage of fuck across
reception status: High>Medium>Low. This format is in harmony with the pattern observed
when all word forms are taken as a whole, as shown in row 6 in Table 11. This finding is
unusual but true. The explanation for this phenomenon, however, is beyond the corpus-based
approach and would require, at the very least, substantial sociological study to explain.

9. Medium of text

Five basic types of medium of text are annotated in the BNC corpus. This section will use this
information to examine the effect of publication medium on the distribution pattern of fuck.
Table 12 compares the rate of usage of fuck across medium.
It is clear that for all of the word forms, the contrast between types of medium is
statistically significant. While miscellaneous unpublished ranks before book for four out of
five word forms (fuck, fucked, fucks and fucker(s)), the difference in the frequencies between
the two media is not statistically significant. Hence, for these word forms, book and
miscellaneous unpublished can be re-ordered. Book ranks before miscellaneous only for
fucking. Yet the difference in its frequencies between the two types of medium is significant,
therefore book and miscellaneous unpublished cannot be re-ordered. Fuck is most frequently
used in book, followed by miscellaneous unpublished, periodical, miscellaneous published
and written-to-be-spoken. As can be seen from the table, fuck occurs nearly 5 times as
frequently in books as in periodicals, and over 12 times as frequently as in miscellaneous
published works. No use of fuck is found in written-to-be-spoken scripts.
Table 12: Medium of text
Form Medium Words RF NF LL Sig. LL Sig.
ratio level ratio level
Book 52574506 667 12.69 0.198 0.657
Mis. unpub. 3461953 47 13.58
fuck Periodical 23978695 80 3.34 --- --- 265.830 <0.001
Mis. pub. 3922977 1 0.25 --- ---
To-be-spoken 861592 0 0 --- ---
Book 52574506 100 1.9 0.740 0.390
Mis. unpub. 3461953 9 2.6
fucked Periodical 23978695 19 0.79 --- --- 22.373 <0.001
Mis. pub. 3922977 1 0.25 --- ---
To-be-spoken 861592 0 0 --- ---
Book 52574506 16 0.3 0.619 1.000
Mis. unpub. 3461953 2 0.58
fucks Periodical 23978695 0 0 --- --- 11.720 0.014
Mis. pub. 3922977 0 0 --- ---
To-be-spoken 861592 0 0 --- ---
Book 52574506 875 16.64 22.333 <0.001
Mis. unpub. 3461953 25 7.22
fucking Periodical 23978695 59 2.46 --- --- 430/306 <0.001
Mis. pub. 3922977 8 2.04 --- ---
To-be-spoken 861592 0 0 --- ---
Book 52574506 41 0.78 0.030 1.000
Mis. unpub. 3461953 3 0.87
fucker(s) Periodical 23978695 6 0.25 --- --- 11.007 0.018
Mis. pub. 3922977 0 0 --- ---
To-be-spoken 861592 0 0 --- ---
Book 52574506 1699 32.32 6.137 0.013
Mis. unpub. 3461953 86 24.84
All Periodical 23978695 164 6.84 --- --- 709.749 <0.001
forms Mis. pub. 3922977 10 2.55 --- ---
To-be-spoken 861592 0 0 --- ---

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10. Date of creation
In this section, we will compare written English in the periods 1960-1974 and 1975-1993 to
see whether language change has influenced the pattern of uses of fuck in British English. As
date of creation is encoded for the written section of the BNC alone, it was not possible to
examine changes in the distribution pattern of fuck in spoken English in McEnery et al (2000).
As there is no ready made analogue of the spoken BNC available for an earlier period, the
exploration of diachronic change in spoken English is, in effect, impossible using the corpus-
based methodology.
Table 13: Date of creation
Form Date Words RF NF LL ratio Sig. level
fuck 1975-1993 75501632 762 10.09 5.241 0.022
1960-1974 2036939 11 5.4
fucked 1975-1993 75501632 128 1.7 6.815 0.009
1960-1974 2036939 0 0
fucks 1975-1993 75501632 18 0.24 0.958 1.000
1960-1974 2036939 0 0
fucking 1975-1993 75501632 937 12.41 0.020 0.888
1960-1974 2036939 26 12.76
fucker(s) 1975-1993 75501632 47 0.62 1.642 0.200
1960-1974 2036939 3 1.47
All forms 1975-1993 75501632 1892 25.06 2.520 0.112
1960-1974 2036939 40 19.64

As can be seen in Table 13, when all word forms are taken together, there is no
significant difference in the frequency of fuck between the two periods under consideration, in
spite of a 5% increase in 1975-1993. In terms of word forms, however, there are some
remarkable changes. While fucking was used at almost exactly the same rate in the two
periods, the frequency of fuck doubled in the latter period. The difference in the frequencies of
fucker(s) is not significant, but the use of the word was reduced by half in 1975-1993. It is
also interesting to note that, fucked and fucks appear to be a new development in 1975-1993,
because the two-million-word texts sampled for 1960-1975 does not contain a single instance
of the two words

11. Conclusion
Fuck in written English generally acts as we would expect it to, given how it acts in spoken
English. It is correlated with writing for a lower level of audience, as it is associated with
speech from the lower classes. It is a marker of male readership/authorship as it is a marker of
male speakers. Also, it is a word used more frequently by younger writers, just as it is a word
more often spoken by younger speakers.
However, the written BNC also allows us to explore the influence of context of use
on the word more clearly than we can using the spoken BNC. As one would expect, the word
is associated with more informal sorts of writing, being totally absent from writing in the
natural and pure sciences, but most frequent in imaginative writing. The issue of hearer, which
is vexatious to explore with the spoken BNC (see McEnery, Baker, Hardie 2000) is translated
into intended reader in the BNC. This research question is more tractable, and we can see that
texts intended for females shun the word relative to texts intended for males. The effect of this
avoidance of fuck is even noticeable in texts intended for mixed audiences, which are more
akin to texts for female audiences than male with regard to the frequency of their usage of the
word fuck. Yet running contrary to these findings is the finding related to reception status,
where high reception status is linked to an elevated level of fuck usage.
While the investigation presented in this paper is only possible with appropriate
corpus resources, we feel that the corpus-based approach is not all-powerful (cf. McEnery,
Baker & Hardie 2000: 47) and often the process of explaining corpus findings leads one to
methodologies other than the corpus method (McEnery, 2003). Corpora are useful in
formulating and testing linguistic hypotheses, but they cannot readily provide explanations for
questions such as why people from higher social class use fuck frequently and why writings of
the highest reception status contain the most frequent use of fuck. Nevertheless, the corpus

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methodology, in combination with other methodologies, is undoubtedly of use in providing
descriptions that any purported explanations must account for.

References

McEnery, A. 2003. Swearing in English. London: Routledge.

McEnery, A, Baker, P & Hardie, A. 2000. Swearing and abuse in modern British English. In
Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk, B & Melia, P (eds.) PALC’99: Practical Applications in
Language Corpora. : Europäischer Verlag der Wissenschaften: Peter Lang.

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