Buddy continues to be on the mend. Good. He does seem to have nine lives.
The changes to the store have worked out; but the one thing I haven’t tackled, which is usually something that web designers would’ve done ten years ago, is the freakin’ logo. “Freakin’” is a very New York word that is usually used to replace more graphic language.
I’ll bet a whole book could be written on the use, and etymology of freakin’ and yes, I don’t think you can use it without leaving off the last G.
I don’t want to look it up, as that would give a lot away, and I’d rather imagine a bunch of small time hoods sitting in a cellar of a lower east side tenement when the boss, for some reason, is forced to stop using the real F word and replaces it on the spot with Freakin’,
The freak show was popular at the time. And small time hoods liked to relax in the relative safety of the side shows where they became friends with the freaks who were also outcasts from legitimate society.
However, it may have nothing at all to do with the actual meaning of the word Freak, as it is also easily exchanged for the word, Friggin’
In other words, it would be perfectly alright to say, I would like to get this friggin’ logo done already, or this freakin’ logo has been giving me a hard time.
The word freak, well that’d be a noun most of the time. Though in the 60′s it got additional usage with Freak Out! And the like. And is still used to describe a bad experience that doesn’t have anything to do with the original meaning of the noun.
Friggin’ probably comes from sailing ship slang. Anyway – the whole subject doesn’t seem to have anything to do with photography, other than that if you knew me well, you’d find that I use both of these words a whole freakin’ lot when I’m talking to myself, as in: damn, missed that freakin’ shot again.
And I almost never use the real F word. I’m sure that Lester will be able to do a bit of research into the origin of the word freakin’ and I thank him for that as now I’m going into Fireworks to make the BECKERMANPHOTO LOGO. Funny how photo and logo rhyme. I wonder if anyone has registered PhotoLogo yet?
Once again, Beckerman sets up an irresistable challenge: the origin of the word “freakin” as a euphemism for the real F word.
My theory is that “freakin” is simply derived from “friggin”, which has a very similar pronunciation. “Frigging” is a word that goes back to the 15th Century when it meant rubbing against something. In the 18th Century, it became a profane word for the act of copulation or masturbation. Around 1920, the word lost it’s intensity and became a euphemism for the F word. (The timing seems right to me because my father was born in 1920 and used the word “friggin” all the time.)
The word “freakin” is a relatively recent euphemism and since it sounds so close to “friggin”, it makes sense that it may have been derived from “friggin.” There may have been a period of transition when “friggin” became “fricken” first and then the short “i” sound turned into a long “e” sound. That period of transition could have occurred some time in the 1960s when the word “freak” was commonly used to describe a drug user or non-comformist, as in Stephen Stills’ song “I Almost Cut My Hair” (“let my freak flag fly”).
Reader beware that this is just an hypothesis and possible research project for an up and coming etymologist.