One never hers the word, feck, used in its positive form; only its negative, feckless, is used. Maybe we should tell our politicians to get fecking?

Wiktionary gives two alternative etymologies: from the Scots, as a cut-short form of effect, and from the Irish feic, "to see". The former gives us feckless, the letter gives the present-day Irish a useful alternative for "fuck".

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Originally posted by arnie:
Wiktionary gives two alternative etymologies: from the Scots, as a cut-short form of effect, and from the Irish feic, "to see".

I think the former is much more likely.

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cut-short form of effect,

I am wondering if you say cut-short in England, rather than shortcut?

No. We use shortcut as you do.

But sometimes, as in your post, you say cut-short? I maybe wrong, but I don't think we say that here in the U.S.

A shortcut is a noun, meaning "a quicker way to get somewhere". Cut-short is a verb/adverb formation, the past participle of "to cut", with the modifier "short", indicating "not long".

I could have used the technical term aphetic, but substituted what I thought was a clearer term.

Oh, I completely understood what you were saying. I just was interested in the word. Aphetic I would have had to look up.

I thought an aphetic was something to get rid of aphids.