THE ASK
THE INSIGHT
THE SOLUTION
Design materials for an exciting upcoming exhibition based in the UK revolving around Sid Vicious.
Language is a vessel for Sid to escape his pain replacing emotion for the quick fix of profanity.
Creating an exhibition which explores the reasons Sid used offensive language while questioning why these words are offensive at all.
Fuck. It’s just a name. The first fuck ever given was from Henry Fuckebeggar. It didn’t seem vulgar at all calling someone a fuck beggar 734 years ago.
“I DON’T WANNA SEE SOME UGLY OLD BITCH THAT PETER FRAMPTON GOES OUT WITH, DO I?” Sid Vicious on EAUGTV
Bitch originated from the old English word bicce, which was used to describe a female dog. Initially the word desended from Germanic influence. While the word is still used for this meaning today, it has now taken to become an offensive word for women. The word started to become derogatory when used to explain a hysterical woman ‘acting like a bitch in heat’ in other words, a menstruating dog.
“ALL THE FUCKING CRIMINALS OF JERSEY GOING ‘GRUH FUCKIN ‘ELL CUNT’” Sid Vicious backstage at The Roxy
The earliest known instance of fuck being used in the English language was from 1373 with the term “Fockynggroue.” meaning doing the funny downstairs business. In 1500, it was used in a satirical poem to describe some friars. In that case, nothing like “fuck” was actually written out. Instead, the word was hidden in a code. In 1513, it appeared in a Scottish poem as “fukkit...” But for English’s first use, we’ve got a dissatisfied 1528 monk. He’s written “O D fuckin abbot.” And in the last 205 years, the term has evolved to include phrases like: 1916: “Fuck up” 1929: “Fuck off” 1960: “Fuck-all”
Fuck has now evolved so far that it’s basically a noun, verb, adjective and everything else all rolled into one.
“DUMB WHORE” Sid Vicious in Hyde Park
The word has incredibly early origins and is still seen in variations in the Dutch, Swedish and German language. In the 1530s the spelling of the word altered from hore to whore which was initially an abbreviation of the word harlot, meaning prostitute. It has also been used in the past as a verb describing the act of committing adultery, or feeling sexual desires.
The word has been used to describe lewd women from at least c. 1200 however it did not initially relate to exchanging sexual favours for money.