Tuesday, December 05, 2006

The F-word.

This is a real, honest to God sign in a real, honest to God town in Austria.

My friend Eileen just e-mailed me a very funny article about this town. I thought it was all a joke and decided to google it. Wikipedia has this to say about Fucking:

Fucking (IPA: /ˈfʊkɪŋ/—the "u" is pronounced like the "u" in English "put") is a small settlement (population c. 150), part of the municipality of Tarsdorf, in the Innviertel region of western Upper Austria, located at 48°02′59″N, 12°50′59″E, bordering Bavaria. It is near the city of Salzburg. The village is known to have existed as “Fucking” since at least 1070 and is named after a man from the 6th century called Focko. “Ing” is an old Germanic suffix meaning “people”; thus Fucking, in this case, means “place of Focko’s people”. The settlement’s most famous feature is a traffic sign with its name on it beside which English-speaking tourists often stop to have their photograph taken. The sign is the most commonly stolen street sign in Austria. Significant amounts of public funds are spent on replacing the stolen signs. In August 2005 the road signs were replaced with theft-proof signs welded to steel and secured in concrete to make the signs harder to take. In 2004, owing to the stolen signs and embarrassment over the name, a vote was held on changing the name, but the town's residents voted against doing so. Coincidentally there are two small municipalities just over the border in Bavaria, Germany called Petting and Kissing.

Pretty fucking funny, huh?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I hope this isn't one of your "deep thoughts"!
What's with these blogs about cussing? You need to wash your mouth out with soap!