fuck, you

   Used mainly in North America as a variant of ‘you fucker’. The term merely expresses contempt and dislike without specifically referring to sexual activities. It also says something about the speaker, that he or she is prepared to use a word which is known to be taboo. In Joshua Then and Now, by Mordecai Richler, occurs the passage:’ ‘“‘I’ll drive you home, if you like.” “I don’t like. And neither,” she shouted, “do I wish to be humiliated, you fuck. You arrogant prick. Just who do you think you are?”’ The Choirboys, by Joseph Wambaugh, has a Los Angeles policeman saying to a male colleague: ‘Ya fuck, ya! Ya dirty slant-eyed heathen godless little fuck, ya!’ The speaker in this case is supposedly a devout Jehovah’s Witness, and it is said of the outburst that he was ‘swearing for the first time in anyone’s memory’. For a speaker who habitually uses obscenities, ‘you fuck’ may have no more force than ‘you idiot’, ‘you jerk’. ‘You look like death warmed over, you fuck! Go home!’ says such a speaker to a friend in Blue Dreams, by William Hanley.