Among wordsmiths, Jesse Sheidlower is not only famous — he’s the editor at large of the Oxford English Dictionary — but also infamous — he’s the editor of The F-Word, a historical dictionary of the word fuck. God bless lexicographers, you know? The F-Word is no thin bathroom book, either, but a meticulously researched 320-page hardcover reference tome, robust enough to sit alongside the OED, despite the introduction by Lewis Black. It contains more than 4,000 quotations, with each variation on fuck given its earliest citation. It’s also been updated three times, with the last edition — almost twice as big as the previous one — arriving this month under the stiff banner of Oxford University Press. It includes fucktard, of course, and fuck this shit. Artfuck, fuckfest, and fuckability. Also fuck machine. And I wouldn’t fuck her with your dick. That’s enough for now.
Thu., Oct. 1, 7 p.m., 2009
