(no subject)

My current status message in Instantbird is Go not to the confused non-elves for answers, for they shall say both "Buh?" and "Fucked if I know?" Today when I logged in and saw this I got curious about the "etymology", as it were, of the phrase "fuck(ed) if I know". Clearly it's one of the many English idioms that invoke the idea of being penetrated sexually, whether willingly (with the implications that the target is at least effeminate and possibly a "sodomite") or no. But why wish such idiomatic fucking upon oneself? Is it kind of an oath, saying "If I am lying to you when I say that I don't know, then I am just a filthy poof / may I be sexually penetrated against my will"?

(Not sure then exactly what the expansion would be of milder "hell/heck if I know", except that it's simply a substitution of milder swear words for the strong "fuck", and loses the actual sense of the verb in the process.)

(no subject)

Somewhat pursuant to this entry from February puzzling over the grammar in dialog boxes in Word 2013:

evasive noodle: "Would you like to keep the last item you copied? If so, it may take us a bit longer to exit." -- when I close Word very quickly after copying something to the clipboard
evasive noodle: I still wonder who the "we" is and why it's speaking in the plural first person
evasive noodle: clearly i am not exiting so I think it must be an exclusive we internal to the program
evasive noodle: especially since it addresses me in the second person
evasive noodle: it is imps [referring to the imps inside iconographs in Discworld]
Stygian Syzygy: That's... a scary concept
evasive noodle: the first person singular would be twee. the first person plural is just baffling
Stygian Syzygy: Imps. And Clippy.
evasive noodle: their dark lord Clippy