The Volokh Conspiracy - Holy F-Word, Batman:

Derek Muller notes that Justice Scalia's majority opinion in FCC v. Fox Television uses the term F-Word, with the F and the W capitalized. (It also uses S-Word, but that is a story for another day.) Any thoughts on why this was so, he asks?

Well, it looks like the FCC used this capitalization in its original decision, and the Second Circuit quoted it; Justice Scalia may have therefore followed the FCC's lead. (Note that generally the FCC commissioners' f-word capitalization patterns are mixed.) But that still leaves us with the question why the author of the particular FCC decision capitalized F-Word.

I can't answer the "why," but I too was intrigued, and found the following pattern in Lexis's US database (which covers many U.S. newspapers):

(caps("F-Word") and not allcaps ("F-Word")) and date(> 1/1/2005) finds 252 uses of F-Word, so capitalized -- but nearly of these are in titles of books, TV shows, and the like, where most words would be capitalized in any event. Thus, there are nearly zero non-title uses of F-Word.
nocaps("f-word") and date(> 1/1/2005) finds 1805 uses of f-word, so uncapitalized.
("f-word" and not caps("F-Word") and not nocaps("f-word")) and date(> 1/1/2005) finds 2682 uses of "F-word."

Searching through court decisions yields roughly comparable ratios among the three options.

So "F-word" and "f-word" are roughly equally common in recent newspapers and in recent court decisions (with "F-word" slightly predominating), but "F-Word," outside titles, is extremely uncommon -- except apparently in some FCC decisions, and from there into the Supreme Court Reports.

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Bad (mail) (www):

I'm sort of embarrassed that the Court didn't simply spell out the words. These are grown men. Well, grown men that think rummaging around in the panties of a young girl is a laugh riot, anyway.

4.28.2009 12:36pm

Melancton Smith:

Is the F-Word "Federalism"?

4.28.2009 12:38pm

Sean Connery:

"I'll take Swords for 200 Alex"

"That's S-Words, Mr. Connery"

4.28.2009 12:40pm

steve (www):

I can't find that reference in my current version of my AP Style Guide, so I have <b>no idea</b> what to do...

;)

4.28.2009 12:41pm

Just Dropping By (mail):

It seems also worth noting that Scalia spells them "f***ing" and "s***" in the excerpts of the transcripts appearing in the opinion rather than using the full words.

4.28.2009 12:48pm

martinned (mail) (www):

Strange country...

The Commission first declared that Bono’s use of the F-Word fell within its indecency definition, even though the word was used as an intensifier rather than a literal descriptor. “[G]iven the core meaning of the ‘F-Word,’” itsaid, “any use of that word . . . inherently has a sexual connotation.” Id., at 4978, ¶8. The Commission determined, moreover, that the broadcast was “patently offensive” because the F-Word “is one of the most vulgar, graphic and explicit descriptions of sexual activity in the English language,” because “[i]ts use invariably invokes acoarse sexual image,” and because Bono’s use of the wordwas entirely “shocking and gratuitous.” Id., at 4979, ¶9.

4.28.2009 12:57pm

LarryA (mail) (www):

So if that's the SCOTUS terminology, is it legal to run around yelling "F-word you, f-word you!" except in a crowded theater?

4.28.2009 12:58pm

Logic Checker:

Who gives an F-Word?

4.28.2009 1:20pm

Eugene Volokh (www):

Maybe some people who are interested in language?

4.28.2009 1:22pm

Cityduck (mail):

It is completely infantile that the Court used the phrase "F-Word" or "F***ing." They are not second grade teachers.

I wonder how Scalia would have decided Cohen v. California, the "Fuck the Draft" case?

Somewhere my old Constitutional Law Professor, William Lockhart, is rolling in his grave.

4.28.2009 1:23pm

Stevie Miller (mail):

Slow day at the office, Eugene?

4.28.2009 1:25pm

I would have preferred they used the phrase "dropping the F bomb".

4.28.2009 1:33pm

Oren:

Indeed. I'm just about as perplexed by this as when PC-crazy folks at the universities use "n-word".

It's neither racist nor offensive to use a word in the clinical context, especially when you are actually talking about the word itself.

4.28.2009 1:35pm

I guess clinical meant technical. Not my most precise statement ever ...

David M. Nieporent (www):

It's neither racist nor offensive to use a word in the clinical context, especially when you are actually talking about the word itself.

I agree, but for some of us (depending in large part, I suppose, on where and when we were raised -- and I'm not making a moral judgment, since I agree that it's not racist in that context) it's just uncomfortable to even think the word, let alone say it.

And, of course, in PC environments like college campuses, it's safer not to say it in even the most innocuous context. (See, e.g., the "wetback" controversy at Brandeis, which FIRE has covered extensively.)

4.28.2009 1:55pm

rosetta's stones:

That and it must be raining outside. ;-)

4.28.2009 2:10pm

Being a Brandeisian (any linguist want to wax eloquent on the right noun for a 'member of Brandeis'?), I'm well aware of our unfortunate inability to parse out the context of a word.

As to the discomfort of the word "nigger", I find it to be an odd sort of psychological barrier -- a form of mental distancing that is analogous to Scalia's refusal to use the word "fuck" in a meaningful context.

4.28.2009 2:12pm

einhverfr (mail) (www):

This is really silly. If you go read Brandenburg v. Ohio and the footnotes to that case, you see all offensive language spelled out plainly so there is no doubt.

"Kill the niggers.... We intend to do our part...." (from Footnote 1).

Why we we care about the words at issue here in court opinions but not those which are motivated by pure hatred?

Silly folks...

4.28.2009 2:30pm

Indeed. I'm just about as perplexed by this as when PC-crazy folks at the universities use "n-word".

n-word being "niggard," right? Horrible word, that.....

4.28.2009 2:33pm

Still no good noun for Brandeisian?

4.28.2009 2:35pm

Keri Brooks:

I figured Scalia used F-Word, F***ing, etc., so that his opinion could be legally read over the airwaves without getting anyone fined. :-)

4.28.2009 2:39pm

tommears (mail):

The whole debacle brings to mind the late author Robert Anton Wilson. Wilson suggested a particularly clever means to get around the naughty word problem. He suggested substituting the names of Supreme Court Justices for the words in question. The late justice Rhenquist was assigned the D-Word, and Potter Stewart (of I-know-it-when-I-see-it fame) the F-Word (or f-word if you prefer).

for example:
I'd like to Potter Stewart her.
-or-
He has a really big Rhenquist.

4.28.2009 2:43pm

Liberal Libertarian:

I wonder if the results are accurate: some reporters of decisions (or law clerks) might have used their own style guides (or sense of what a style guide might say, anyway) for this kind of thing.

4.28.2009 2:57pm

John Armstrong (mail) (www):

No shit?

jnet (mail):

what about "effing," as in, "He must beeffing crazy to sell at that price."

4.28.2009 3:08pm

As to the discomfort of the word "nigger", I find it to be an odd sort of psychological barrier -- a form of mental distancing that is analogous to Scalia's refusal to use the word "fuck" in a meaningful context.

Perhaps. I'm just answering your question from my perspective. The word generally is ugly (the n-word, that is, not fuck, which is just vulgar), and I am uncomfortable saying it unnecessarily.

4.28.2009 3:10pm

Somewhat analogous to the way the radio "bleeps" the words "fuck" and "fucking" by sort of removing the middle syllable so it sounds like "fu--" or "f---ing" with the "f" very understandable.

The first time I heard it (having grown up in the age of the 1KHz bleep) I was surprised they get away with it. You can hear pretty damn clearly what is being said.

The word generally is ugly (the n-word, that is, not fuck, which is just vulgar), and I am uncomfortable saying it unnecessarily.

I'm not sure what the distinction between ugly and vulgar is here.

4.28.2009 4:16pm

Oh, I see the F-Word is "fnord".

4.28.2009 5:14pm

Gonzer Maven (mail):

The all-time championship in such judicial lingistic achevement goes to Robert S. Thompson, retired Justice of the California Court of Appeal, who described the statement of the defendant to the arresting police officer as imputing to the latter the role of the "filial partner in an oedipal relationship." Can't beat that.

4.28.2009 6:01pm

Nathan_M (mail):

I always find it a bit disturbing when courts (or journalists for that matter) don't use certain words but hint at them with the assumption everyone knows what they mean.

Leaving aside that general complaint though, I recently read a decision from a tribunal that did not want to use swear words but was quoting from material that did and apparently did not want to risk being misunderstood. So the decisions said "In this decision I will write 's..t' where the original says 'shit' and 'f..k' where the original says 'fuck'".

4.28.2009 6:03pm

markm (mail):

That's always been the trouble with obscenity laws - they're either vague or in violation of themselves.

4.29.2009 6:12am

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