motherfucker

   ‘Get the fuck away from my wife, you fucking motherfucker,’ says one man to another in Any Minute I Can Split, by Judith Rossner. The term is used in low colloquial American speech to a man who is detested. The speaker is probably not thinking of the literal meaning of the expression when using it, the attitude expressed is more meaningful. The New Dictionary of American Slang, by Robert L.Chapman, points out that ‘mother’ in this expression is sometimes replaced by ‘mammy’, ‘mama’, ‘mommo’, while the second element can be replaced by ‘eater’, ‘kisser’, ‘lover’, etc. There is another example of ‘you motherfucker’, used aggressively by a black male to a white, in Norman Mailer’s An American Dream. In The River, by Steven Bauer, occurs: ‘A group of strikers watched him, ready to lunge. “Come on, motherfuckers.” Truck growled.’ The same novel has an example of ‘you selfish motherfucker’, used by one man to another. In environments where obscenities are used frequently, ‘motherfucker’ can lose almost all meaning and become simply the equivalent of ‘man’. Such is the case, for instance, in North Dallas Forty, by Peter Gent, which is concerned with professional football players in the USA. ‘You muthahfuckah’ also occurs in the novel, attempting to show its pronunciation by a black American speaker. ‘Motherfucker’ can occur elsewhere in the vocative phrase. ‘I will fix you for this, you motherfucker bastard,’ says a woman to a man in St Urbain’s Horseman, by Mordecai Richler.