If I say “We need a replacement PDQ,” do you know WTF that means? You might, or you might guess, but let’s face it: PDQ is Prime Dad Quality stuff. It was major popular in the middle 20th century, but now it’s mainly an old-style joke, retro like a Kodak Instamatic. You’re more likely to encounter it now in the name of the satirical composer PDQ Bach (invented by Peter Schickele in 1965, and last seen in concert in 2015) than in earnest.
So… yeah, if you don’t know what PDQ stands for, your odds of guessing it are only middling. If I said it meant PFQ, would that help? How about if I replaced it with RFN? Would you get that I meant we need a replacement immediately?
Our mission here at Strong Language is to promote profanity and extol the unexpurgated. As our founding co-fucker Stan Carey promised back in December 2014, at the end of our first week of publication, we aim to present “a feast of fucks and sweary shit.” Censorship, as a rule, is not our jam.
Sometimes, though, it’s swear-aversion that rouses our interest. The dropped letters in ads. The bleeps in commercials. The f**cks, the s**ts, even the Victorian-appearing d*mns.
Which is why we are pointing you today to Blackbird Spyplane, the Substack newsletter that the New York Times said was “inventing a new language for talking about style.” As it happens, some of that language is generously sprinkled with little stars.
Strong Language now has an account on Bluesky, @stronglang.bsky.social. Which means you can now get a skeet from Strong Language.
Which, depending on what variety of English you use when you’re at home, and your own personal inclinations, may be indifferent, or odd, or sketchy, or gross, or worth a shot.
Listening to a podcast this morning, I noticed the phrase mature language used in a content warning. It’s one of many phrases in the form X language, some of them similarly euphemistic, for what we might more plainly call swearing.
In several of these phrases, the modifier identifies the type of content: abusive language contains abuse, obscene language obscenity, profane language profanity, vulgar language vulgarity. But these categories are tricky to define and tend to overlap in usage; the phrases are often used interchangeably.1
I recently had the occasion to deploy the term, “The fuck outta here!” This got me thinking. The usual phrase in full is: “Get the fuck out of here.” But we have two common truncations: “The fuck outta here,” and “Fuck outta here.”
In meaning, the ejaculation “the fuck outta here” is roughly equivalent to “I don’t believe what you’re saying,” or maybe “bullshit.” What drew my interest was the truncation of “the.” So we start with “The fuck outta here,” which elides the word “get,” whereas “fuck outta here” elides both “get” and “the.” I think these are different expressions.
When you say, “Fuck off,” you’re using the word “fuck” as a verb. With “Fuck outta here,” it’s the verb, too. When you say, “Get the fuck outta here,” the nominative verb is “get.” Now we’re drilling down to the distinction. “The fuck outta here!” is leaning on the missing “get.” So what’s going on with these two phrases? “Fuck off” is akin to “Piss off.” In like guise, “Fuck outta here” is a rejection, a command, an imperative statement. But you add that “the” and things change in a subtle yet important way. “Fuck outta here” is closer to “Get out of here” or “Go away.” Add the definite article and the meaning shifts closer to “I don’t believe it.”
Phonetically, that “outta” is amusing. Depending on your idiolect, it might have a sort of Brooklyn accent, closer to “oudda.” Delivered naturally, it could sound like a single word: fuggouddaheah. But if your meaning is “this is nonsense,” then dafuggouddaheah gets you on the mark. Which may be your reaction to this monograph.
Strong Language 