How rude is "naff"?

"Naff" is a word I infrequently use as a mild version of "shit". If something is a little bit bad or dull, it is "naff". I have just come across (via The Slate Gabfest podcast) one of the alleged roots of the word giving a ruder etymology: "not available for f***ing." This is backed up as a possible etymology here.

Is this word ruder than I though?

Solution 1:

In a list of the rudest words in Britain, naff didn't place in the top 28. Certainly to my ears it's inoffensive.

Solution 2:

Princess Anne famously told photographers to Naff off- so it is by royal appointment

Solution 3:

Naff is a formal way of avoiding to pronounce the F-word.

It is usable in all situations involving fuck except the actual intercourse itself.

How rude it is depends of course a lot on the intonation and the circumstances but it is usually mild (especially considering how common fuck is nowadays). It is definitely less rude than fuck.

Here are a few entries from the authoritative Partridge dictionary of slang. Note how naff is used as a substitute for fuck in such expressions as "naff of" or "naffed up".

naff adjective vulgar, bad, unlovely, despicable; generally contemptible; when used in gay society it may mean heterosexual. Theatrical and CAMP origins but the actual derivation is disputed; possibly an acronym for ‘not available for fucking’, ‘not a fuck’ or ‘normal as fuck’; or a play on the military acronym NAAFI (Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes) as ‘no ambition and fuck-all interest’; otherwise it may originate as back slang for FANNY (the vagina or the buttocks), a shortening of ‘nawfuckingood’ or in the French phrase rien à faire (nothing to do) UK, 1965

naff used as a euphemism for ‘fuck’ (in all senses except sexual intercourse/to have sex) UK, 1977

naffette; naffeen adjective vulgar, bad, despicable, unlovely. Polari; CAMP variations of NAFF UK, 1992

naffing adjective used as a euphemism for ‘fucking’. Extended from NAFF UK, 1959

naff it up verb to spoil something UK, 1981

naff off verb to go away. From NAFF; made very familiar in the UK during the 1970s by the prison-set television situation comedy, Porridge, written by Clement and La Frenais. Perhaps the social highpoint of this word’s history was during the 1982 Badminton Horse Trials when Princess Anne (now Princess Royal) asked the press, ‘Why don’t you just naff off?’ UK, 1982