An amusing, informative, controversial and absolutely irreverent background of the world’s most liked word.

F, U, C and K – four characters that can trigger outrage, scandal, humiliation or instant comfort if you hit your thumb having a hammer.

Within this wide-ranging and frequently hilarious history of the F-word, Rufus Lodge searches out the origins of our language’s most popular obscenity, and chronicles its dramatic arrival in our everyday lives. As he discovers, the F-word can be about F**k: An Irreverent Background of the F-Word heard among aristocrats and astronauts, rock and roll celebrities and royals, poets and politicians, also together with Father Ted and Basil Brush.

No-one is safe through the F-word’s outrageous progress, as innocent animals, fragrant mothers and squeaky-clean TV hosts are dragged into the fray. The cast of characters includes Shakespeare, the Beatles, Andy Murray, T.S. Eliot, Elton, Camilla and everyone unlucky enough to reside in an Austrian city with a very embarrassing name.

F*** is a cavalcade of priceless anecdotes, historical analysis, filthy jokes and definitions too devious for any decent dictionary – guaranteed to make you have fun, and broaden your vocabulary*.

* The publisher calls for no responsibility for any humiliation caused when visitors drop the F-bomb after scanning this book.