Motherf***er: The Etymology of a Slur

by Kilgore Trout
Staff Writer

August 16, 2010

Is it true?… The origin of the slur, motherf***er can be traced to former President Millard Filmore. Filmore, who served as the Vice President to Zachary Taylor from 1849-1850, was himself thrust into the Oval Office in 1850 after the untimely death of Taylor. He left office in 1853 when Democrat Franklin Pierce, who bore no resemblance to the M*A*S*H* character of the same name played by Alan Alda, was sworn in as the 14th President. Filmore, desperate to return to Washington, ran for president as a third party candidate in 1856, taking votes from Republican John C. Fremont, thereby throwing the election to Democrat James Buchanan. Let us not forget that it was during the Presidency of Buchanan that South Carolina seceded from the Union, igniting the Civil War. Had it not been for Filmore, perhaps American history would look quite different.

Ever since, Republicans have used the slur MF’er when discussing a hated rival, (see Richard Nixon). Abraham Lincoln was heard to refer to General George B. McClellan as a MF’er. Rutherford B. Hayes referred to Samuel Tilden as the same. Benjamin Harrison famously referred to Prohibitionist Carrie Nation as “that f***ing MF’er”, the first time that MF’er was used against a woman. However, after a few generations, the origin of the slur had become lost to history.

In 1922, during one of his secret poker games at the White House, President Warren G. Harding was asked why so many other Republicans were referring to his as President MF’er, (this was during the peak of the Teapot Dome scandal). Harding, a well known philanderer, assumed that the ‘F’ stood for F***, and guessed, jokingly, that the ‘M’ could stand for Mother. The rhyme garnered quite a few chuckles around the table, and the slur stuck.

From that day on, motherf***er could be heard everywhere, from the battlefields of Europe and the Pacific, to Nixon’s oval office. Comedian George Carlin even included motherf***er in his list of seven words you can’t say on television. It is even rumored that throughout his acting career, Samuel L. Jackson has “dropped the MF’er bomb” on screen 113, 724 times! Now that’s a lot of Millard Filmore’s!

Now that the truth has been revealed about this etymological mystery, let us civilized Americans clean up our language. When a situation calls for a “motherf***er, why not take the slur back to its origin and simply call the offending party a “Millard Filmore”. They won’t know what hit them.