The F-Word (60 page)

b
. an unimportant task or mission.

1987
P. D. Chinnery
Life on the Line
227 [refers to 1970]: As a new scout pilot they send you out on…rat-f*** missions, in areas where you don’t expect to see much.… They generally sent him on the rat-f***s so that no one would have to depend on him in a bad situation.
1990
M. Brennan
Hunter-Killer Squadron
237: Nobody wanted to fly real combat missions with him, so they usually sent him on the rat fucks.

3
. a damn;
FUCK
noun
definition 2.a.

1971
H. Dahlskog
Dictionary of Contemporary & Colloquial Usage
48:
Ratfuck, R.F.
…a damn, as: I don’t give a
rat-fuck
what you do!
1980
D. Hamill
Stomping Ground
245: Me, I couldn’t give a hairy rat fuck.
1996
J. Díaz
Drown
in
Drown
102: With our bus drivers you didn’t have to hide. Two of them didn’t give a rat fuck and the third one, the Brazilian preacher, was too busy talking Bible to notice anything but the traffic in front of him.
2000
T. Clancy
Bear & Dragon
xlvi. 696: Wars are not rational acts. They are not begun by rational men. They’re begun by people who don’t care a rat-fuck about the people they rule.

4
. a crowded or frenetic social event.—sometimes in phrase:
Philadelphia rat fuck.

[
1965
R. Gehman
The Had
135: I would go if you invited me to a ratfuck.]
1979
J. Houseman
Front & Center
The flashiest, richest, swiftest, best conducted theatrical rat-fuck ever staged in this city.
1986
P. Klein
Growing up Spoiled in Beverly Hills
185: He has described certain parties to me as “rat fucks.”
1987
W. McPherson
Sargasso Sea
ii. 87: “I much prefer a quiet supper to one of these”—he was about to say “rat fucks,” but restrained himself—“one of these after-the-opening feeding frenzies in some designer shark tent.”
1987
S. Quinn
Regrets Only
162: “You could tell from a glance that it was going to be”—she lowered her voice—“what the late Mrs. John T. used to call a Philadelphia rat fuck.”
1995
in
Vanity Fair
(Jan. 1996) 118: The only thing I went to was that Michael Fuchs HBO thing in Sag Harbor arranged by Peggy Siegal, and I’d never go again. It was a real rat fuck.
1997
Guardian
(London) (June 3) (“Feature”) 18: The luxe preview of the Harriman goods…was “the ratfuck to end all ratfucks,” attracting about as repellent a collection of people as can be imagined.
1997
N.Y. Observer
(Oct. 6) 42: Glenn Bernbaum…throws a Philadelphia rat-f*#k for Joan Collins and her new autobiography.
1997
S. Quinn
The Party
42: A huge cocktail party where you’ve invited everyone you’ve ever known and everyone you’ve ever owed.… This sort of event has a name, coined by the late Marie Harriman, the dazzling second wife of statesman Averell Harriman. It is called a “Philadelphia rat fuck”—“P.R.F.” or “rat fuck” for short.
2003
M. Atwood
Oryx & Crake
x. 292: Every week there was a Compound social barbecue, a comprehensive ratfuck that all employees were expected to attend.
2008
J. J. Salem
Tan Lines
296: Everything had been beautifully decorated and lavishly appointed with food and liquor, but the overall affair was a total ratfuck—shoulder to shoulder with the likes of Tommy Lee, Bruce Willis, Pamela Anderson, [etc.].

rat-fuck
verb

1
. to botch;
FUCK UP
.

1966
Folk Speech
(Indiana University Folklore Archives): Used as a verb meaning to botch in the worst possible way.
Rat-fuck
.
2006
T. Phillips
Blacktop Cowboys
119: Jensen was always getting rat fucked, which is his way of describing a plan that goes terribly awry.

2
. to outwit; trick.

1964
in
American Speech
(Oct. 1965) 195:
Rat fuck, n. v
.… This was a widely used slang term at Stanford… It is seldom used except in abbreviatory coinage (
R.F.
)… An
R.F.
is a practical joke…but this…has been broadened in its use. To some undergraduates, it connotes anything unacceptable to the Establishment.…
To R.F.
, however, may mean also simply having a good time, or perhaps doing something that has no practical purpose.
1989
S. Chapple & D. Talbot
Burning Desires
290: Gotta rat-fuck those guys, Missy! It’s the only way.
1989
W. Brashler
Traders
299: Here I was in the middle of the most irresponsible, self-centered, selfish, rat-fucking business in the world and doing well at it.
1989
F. A. Leib
Fire Dream
400: Poor rat-fucked back-stabbed…bastard.
2000
P. Baker
Breach
188: Somebody in this room rat-fucked the president last night.
2002
D. Brock
Blinded by the Right
81: David Sullivan was…a master of bureaucratic intrigue and strategic leaking to the press—“rat fucking” the enemy, in Sullivan’s words.

3
. to harm irreparably, victimize;
FUCK
verb
definition 2.a.

1989
M. Kittredge
Dead & Gone
94: Unless I could get a goddamned thesis written in three weeks, I was, you should excuse the expression, rat-fucked.
1993
J. L. Burke
In the Electric Mist
282: You got wax in your ears, you talk shit, you rat-fuck your friends.
2006
T. Phillips
Blacktop Cowboys
119: If a steer walks all over him, Jensen got rat fucked. If a horse bucks him off, again rat fucked.
2008
T. Bell
Tsar
437: That noman’s-land between safe and totally rat-fucked.

4
.
Military
. to rummage through with the intent to steal; to rifle.

1997
M. C. Hodgins
Reluctant Warrior
28: Curry had rat-fucked (rifled) a case of C rations on the deck under his rack.
2000
G. P. Pellecanos
Shame the Devil
15: Go ahead, Maroulis.… Just keep ratfucking through that closet.
2006
P. K. O’Donnell
We Were One
113: In the rubble-strewn rooms, the men “rat fucked” several boxes of MREs (Meals Ready-to-Eat), picking out the cookies, candy, and other goodies.
2007
M. Eriksen
My River Home
91: “Who ratfucked my pack?” one might say in response to a pair of goggles missing from an unbuttoned pouch.
2007
A. Bay
Embrace the Suck
39:
Rat-fuck
, slang meaning “to ransack something and take what you want.” (“Private Baggadonuts rat-fucked that whole case of MREs just to get all the Pop-Tarts.”)

rat fuck
interjection

(used as an interjection); =
FUCK
verb
definition 1.d.

1996
S. King
Desperation
449: “Dear me,” he said. “I’ve lost the respect of a man once in charge of throwing out Steven Tyler’s barf-bags. Rat-fuck.”
1997
D. Hunt
Magician’s Tale
264: Ratfuck! Kids don’t give a damn.
2006
S. King
Lisey’s Story
89: “Oh, ratfuck,” Darla said dismally, and began to cry again.
2007
M. Davidson
Undead & Uneasy
60: “Rat fuck,” Tina muttered, and I nearly toppled off the counter. Tina, ancient bloodsucking thing that she was…had the manners of an Elizabethan lady and almost never swore. She was perfectly proper at all times. “Mother fuck,” she continued.

rat fucker
noun

a hated or offensive person.—used as a term of abuse. Also: one who engages in
RAT-FUCKING
; a dirty trickster, a saboteur. [The 1914 quotation may be a chance coincidence.]

[
1914
J. London
Jacket
19: It is so absurd, my dear Warden, to think that your rat-throttlers of guards can shake out of my brain the things that are clear and definite in my brain.]
1967
P. Welles
Babyhip
61: “Scum,” John mumbled. “Ratfucker, prick,” George said.
1974
C. Bernstein & B. Woodward
All the President’s Men
135: For the first time, he considered the possibility that the President of the United States was the head ratfucker.
ca
1978
P. Schrader & L. Schrader
Blue Collar
(film script) 62: We’ll get the fifty grand those ratfuckers are getting from the insurance company.
1987
H. Zeybel
Gunship
138: Them dirty… Commie ratfuckers.
2000
G. Blunt
Forty Words for Sorrow
lvii. 370: Rick Bouchard…is a subliterate ratfucker. They’ll have to add a special extension onto hell just to house that creep.
2007
A. Theroux
Laura Warholic
242: I could not possibly list all the mendacious shitwads and unconscionable scum and thieving ratfuckers who, taking complete advantage of the woman, stuck to her like remoras.

rat-fucking
noun

destructive activity, as pranks; (specifically) dirty trickery or sabotage; (
also
) a confusing situation. [The early examples are probably
euphemisms; the 1930 euphemistic quotation at
RAT-FUCK
, definition 2a, may belong here instead.]

1928
L. H. Nason
Sgt. Eadie
110 [refers to 1918]: This time to-morrow, Jake, I’ll be with my own outfit and that’s the only ray of sun in my black sky at present. All other troubles fade when I think of that. No more of this rat-kissing.
1928–29
L. H. Nason
White Slicker
88: You know, I had a sergeancy clinched if we hadn’t run into all this rat-kissing!
1944
in P. Smith
Letters from Father
391:
Rat fucking
…at Hanover [New Hampshire] means the raiding of the students rooms on one floor by the students from another floor—the boys go in groups of eight or ten—turn everything upside down…even fire buckets of water are employed to make the wreck complete.
1972
in C. Bernstein & B. Woodward
All the President’s Men
132: Yes, political sabotage is associated with Segretti. I’ve heard a term for it, “ratfucking.”
Ibid.
138: Ratfucking? He had heard the term. It meant double-cross and, as used by the Nixon forces, it referred to infiltration of the Democrats.
1992
Vanity Fair
(June) 111: Donald Segretti…was an alumnus of the U.S.C. Republican Mafia and a practitioner of the dirty tricks campaign tactics known as “rat fucking.”
1993
J. Hubner
Bottom Feeders
335: Known as “rat fucking,” the tricks could be Jim slipping a huge cockroach in an enchilada Hunter Thompson was about to eat.
1996
G. Gordon Liddy
Will
282: By this time I knew that
rat-fucking
was a University of California fraternity term for glorified Halloween pranks.
2007
M. Eriksen
My River Home
91: “Ratfucking” is a brute phrase that collectively describes looting, pillaging, trophy hunting, stealing, souvenir collecting, scavenging, and borrowing with no intention to return.

rat-fucking
adjective

despicable;
MOTHERFUCKING
adjective
.

1977
J. Cheever
Falconer
36: You rat-fucking, cock-sucking, asstonguing, sneaky, stinking fleabag.
1992
N. DeMille
General’s Daughter
429: You fucking well better, you rat-fucking, mother-fucking —.
1993
Dangerous Game
(film): Some rat-fucking bastard who’s leading a little girl…to a concentration camp, that rat-fucking cocksucker isn’t feeling anything. If he was, he couldn’t take her to the gas chamber.
2006
J. Karp
Futile and Stupid Gesture
307: If a stranger objected, he would scream that the hapless interrupter was “a rat fucking, mother fucking son of a bitch.”