‘Eff. You. En,’ said Mr Banstead. ‘Fun![…]’

A or an? When an indefinite article precedes an acronym or initialism, the choice between a and an follows from the pronunciation: / a FAQ file (“fack”; but “an FAQ file” with the alternate pronunciation “eff-ay-cue”) / an FTC commissioner (“eff-tee-cee”)

‘S-S-C…sitting on a tree…eff-you-cee-kay-i-en-ji.’

And he kept saying, "Effing this, effing that."

They, no more than we, found it hard to eff the ineffable, but they, you see, needed to console themselves more.

It is another way of effing the ineffable, one with potentially serious practical effects.

Douglas Adams (1952–2001), author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, puts it memorably: “Let's think the unthinkable, let's do the undoable. Let us prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after all.”

Eff

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