Comments | habiliments: please help me with a sentence?

habiliments

please help me with a sentence?

Aug 25, 2009 17:14

Poll VERY IMPORTANT QUESTION!

no seriously this is work related, polls, questions

Comments 10

veejane August 26 2009, 00:57:39 UTC

Literally, it is "I am fucked if I know" but we drop the indicative auxiliary. Consider the parallel: nobody says "damn if I know" -- it's "damned."

(The real reason to drop the -ed off of "fucked" is to make the phonological transition easier: two consonants with no vowel in between is not easy in a lot of dialects of American English.)

habiliments August 26 2009, 02:07:42 UTC

I love the response I'm getting to this, and I particularly love your explanation of the literal - I want to run around saying "I am fucked if I know," with very careful enunciation. But I'm sort of confused by your explanation of why it ends up "fuck if I know," because the word ends with a consonant either way...

veejane August 26 2009, 02:22:34 UTC

You know how, over the centuries, people slangify "ask" into "ax"? (Trufax: Noah Webster wanted to put that in the first American dictionary, because it was so common in his local dialect, and surely deserved to be captured as a true, brave, new American way of speaking. Somebody convinced him to leave it out ( ... )

deridere August 26 2009, 17:29:29 UTC

I am in awe of your explanations.

roomette August 26 2009, 02:12:16 UTC

I have heard it "The fuck if I know!" sharing more with "The hell if I know!" Implying noun rather than verb.

But I like it better ending with the big hard K sound.

weds August 26 2009, 17:43:39 UTC

"I've no fucking idea," or something along those lines, here.

habiliments August 26 2009, 21:03:50 UTC

But that's completely different! That's an actual sentence! Instead of just a little phrase.

I still love you for picking "Neither, you classless broad," though. ;)

weds August 26 2009, 21:07:30 UTC

"No fucking clue" comes up too, if that helps? :D

Yay for love! It was the only applicable option -- at best, I get "hell if I know," and that's kind of a misbegotten different thing too.

crystal_star_ss September 2 2009, 18:25:41 UTC

:X I actually hear "Hell if I know" among my circle of friends, but walking the streets I hear "Fuck if I know," though "Fucked if I know" makes more sense.

Then again, veejane explained it very nicely!

semaht September 2 2009, 22:16:47 UTC

Just catching up now, but couldn't resist fun sweary/language poll!
I have never, ever heard "Fucked if I know", unless it was said so fast that the -ed got swallowed up.
Now to read through the rest of the comments!