Disco F*cks House
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Elizabeth Daingerfield Zwicky reports that a if you play the CD entitled (on the cover) "Disco F*cks House" on iTunes, the program inquires, "Do you wish to import 'Disco Fucks House'?" Several things are going on here.
The first thing you need to know is that the CD is German. The second thing you need to know is that the CD is a disco/house mix by the Fabulous Glitterboys (a German group, despite the name). A third thing you might be interested to hear is that the Glitterboys also have a weekly radio show called "Disco F*cks House".
The points of interest are: the use of taboo avoidance characters, and the interpretation of "Disco Fucks House".
All the German sites I googled up had avoidance characters in the title. Not always the same one, and not always just one; I've found:
f*cks
f°cks
f.cks
f**ks
f***s
f****
Apparently, the German speakers who created these sites appreciate that fucks is taboo in English and that the custom in English writing is to use avoidance characters. (But sites in English seem not to use avoidance characters in the title, which is, after all, pretty in-your-face.)
As for the wording of the title, someone apparently thought that transitive fuck can be used to mean something like 'combine with, merge with, mix with, fuse with, blend with'. That would be a plausible semantic extension of its sexual sense, but it's not one I've experienced. Instead, English speakers are likely to interpret non-sexual fuck as aggressive or destructive. Not the right image at all.
An extra: a "Rock Fucks Pop/Pop Fucks Rock" site (belonging to a Spaniard).
Morten Jonsson said,
October 3, 2008 @ 2:59 pm
"Combine with, merge with, mix with, fuse with, blend with." That's pretty much what the shrimp does with the cabbage, isn't it?
Kate said,
October 3, 2008 @ 3:25 pm
I think there is a simple explanation for this.
German electro-disco =/= logic.
It's weird that they are using English "fuck" in this context when German gangsta rap (yeah it exists) often uses "ficken" in an aggressive, destructive context.
For example Google has this lyric from Bushido: "Wer ist so Fit wie ich? Wer ist mein Feind? / Ich bin der, der dich fickt wenn die Sonne nicht mehr scheint."
I'm actually not sure I've ever heard "ficken" used to mean mating and mingling, like the Glitterboys mean "Disco Fucks House".
As for the avoidance thing, well it could just be that Germans really, really love interpolating unpronouncable symbols into things. When I helped organize an art competition last summer, we got projects that were named things like /*/Re_En_Try/*/.
So most likely, Disco F*cks House isn't avoidance at all, except in the sense that it "winks" at the taboo of the word fuck. It just seems more like edgy, artsy typography than Disco Fucks House.
Joe Tank said,
October 3, 2008 @ 3:37 pm
I wouldn't automatically discount the aggressive/destructive connotations of "F*cks" in this context. The adversarial title formula "X versus Y", where X and Y are usually the name of the artists and/or music producers whose work is being combined or repurposed, has been in use for remixes and mashups for a while. I first noticed it in the early 90s. I wouldn't be surprised if the Fabulous Glitterboys decided to use the more intense "F*cks" in the same way.
Adrian said,
October 3, 2008 @ 5:58 pm
"As for the wording of the title, someone apparently thought that transitive fuck can be used to mean something like 'combine with, merge with, mix with, fuse with, blend with'."
Where did you get that from?
Arnold Zwicky said,
October 3, 2008 @ 6:20 pm
Morten Jonsson: ""Combine with, merge with, mix with, fuse with, blend with." That's pretty much what the shrimp does with the cabbage, isn't it?"
For people who haven't been following Language Log in detail: "X fucks Y" is a not uncommon mistranslation into English of recipe names on Chinese menus.