What the MILF?

One of my least favorite among today's popular slang terms is "MILF" (Mother I'd Like to Fuck). Not because I'm offended by the implication that a woman can still be attractive once she's old enough for "US Magazine" to lose interest in her, but because I just think it's a lousy acronym. An acronym should be an actual word. Oddly enough this is one case where the "cleaner" versions of the acronym actually work better: "MILK" (Mother I'd Like to Kiss) or "MILD" (Mother I'd Like to Do) make way more sense than "MILF."

Anyway, I did a Google Groups search for the acronym "MILF" to find out when it was first used. I discovered that the first major usenet use of "MILF" occurred in 1990, except it stood for "Moro Islamic Liberation Front," a Muslim separatist guerilla group based in the Philippines.

For several years thereafter, most references to "MILF" involved this Muslim separatist group and its increasing number of guerillas. But just as MILF was starting to become news, American Pie came out in 1999 and introduced the new meaning of the acronym. Thus undoubtedly earning the producers the enmity of the real MILF, which was soon almost forgotten on Usenet among the flood of American Pie-style "MILF" references.

So while Wikipedia says that the usage of "MILF" in the modern sense pre-dates American Pie, I can't find anything on usenet that would suggest that anyone ever used it that way before the movie. Take that, Wikipedia.

This has been your slang lesson for today. You're welcome.