Jesse Sheidlower is the world’s expert on the F word — and that’s an expertise that requires more work than you might think. Sheidlower is editor at large of the Oxford English Dictionary, and his 270 ...

I was an early consumer and user of the original F-word. There were two age tiers in the close-knit neighborhood where I grew up; as part of the younger one, I got an early education in the nittier ...

In a splashy scene in Elizabeth Gilbert’s frothy, best-selling new novel, City of Girls, Peg Buell—a grande dame theater owner in the 1940s—shouts at her trusty secretary: “Goddamn it, Olive—how much ...

The word on the truck made me wonder: Are we overusing America’s favorite profanity? If we aren’t careful, the F-word could become a victim of its own popularity. It could lose its punch. What a loss.

Swearing is not an uncommon response to pain. But does it actually reduce pain perception or pain tolerance? Yes, according to recent research, by Hostetter and colleagues, published in the April 2024 ...

The most famous four-letter word is also the most prolific. Don’t believe me? Then check out all 449 pages of editor Jesse Sheidlower’s fourth edition of “The F-Word,” a historical dictionary that is ...

This article contains explicit language. Week after week, Dr Who gets himself and his companion, and often entire species, out of very sticky situations. With his trusty TARDIS and sonic sunnies, the ...

Just go ahead and say it, nobody minds anymore. Trump cursing during an interview is merely the last gasp of our media culture depleting the f-word of it’s former power. By James Hibberd ...