I was all of about
six years old, new to the
adult world of
swearing, when I learned what exactly NFG
stood for. I was out in my
grandfather's
garage with my
dad, watching him work on a huge old
Buick roadboat, when he asked me to go get a can of
WD-40. I brought back what turned out to be an
empty can. My dad tried to
spray it a couple of times and gave up. I was sent back with the can and
instructions to tell my
grandpa that the can was NFG.
Needless to say, I had
no idea what it meant. I marched into my grandma's
kitchen, full to the
brim with visiting relatives, and made my
announcement.
"Papa, this can is
En Eff Gee."
Every
eye in the place went to
me. My grandmother turned her attention from the
stove for a moment, took the
can from me and said,
clear as a bell:
"If it's
no fucking good, go get a
fresh one."
Needless to say, all my gathered relatives
burst into
raucous laughter and the story gets repeated, much to my grandma's
horror, at every
family gathering. When ever some one asks me where I learned how to
swear, I tell them my
granny taught me.
Usage:
NFG has gained popular use in
garages and
manufacturing plants when
rejected parts need to be labeled for
disposal or
recycling. I saw a large
bin of
scrap parts labeled NFG during a tour of a
GM plant. Raising a question about it got me a
wink from the
tour guide. It is a
semi-polite way of indicating that the piece is
defective, and should not be used again. More recently, it has been adopted by the
computer parts industry, where defects are not always visually
obvious.
Just don't use it around kids.