The Most used word in South Africa.

The most used word by white South Africans is Fok. It has been used for ages and dating back to Jan van Riebeek. It is known that when Jan van Riebeek landed in the Cape, his first comment was “Fokking hot here”

Since then the word Fok, has been used in nearly all sentences and phrases around South Africa. Common phrases used are: Fok it,Fok me, Fok you, Fok this and Fok that.

As Jan van Riebeek was a Sailor, it has been accepted that the word Fok originates from the front sail of a sailing ship. As this sail typically gave a lot of problems especially with high winds, the sailors who were in charge of this sails always referred to it as: Fokking Fok.

As no sailor in that time, was fond of operating these Fok sails, it was normal that the sailors who were assigned to these sails, tried to arrange with their mates to take over this duty.

Sailors then were also man of little words. Experiencing the noise of high winds most of the time, they used simple words to communicate with each other. It was also common to use hand signals.

To arrange for one sailor to change his Fok duty, went like this: he said “Fok me” and he pointed at himself, and then“Fok you” as he pointed at the sailor he was communicating with. The sailor who was pointed at, then said while he pointed at himself “Fok me” and immediately hold up his thumb to indicate that he agreed to do Fok duty.

It was possible, that the communication did not go so well as described above, especially when the person who was pointed at, refused to do this Fok duty by not showing his thumb up, but instead pointing to the other person and saying “Fok yourselve” This could end up in a lengthy argument until the Boats man put an end to it, by saying to them, “Fok you and Fok you too”.

There are many people in South Africa who do not know a Fok from a Mainsail but use this word multiple times in their sentences, like “How the fok are you?” “What the fok have you been up to?” I haven’t fokking see you for a fokking long time.

This has nothing to do with a nautical phrase integrating into the South African language but merely making a beautiful historic communication system into something common.

The best of Nocookingclue.