The (other) F Word : Faith, the Last Taboo

Libby Brooks views it as "the most shocking word in the English language [ Andrew Goldman calls 'cunt' "the mother of all nasty words" and "the most controversial word of all" Victoria Coren calls it "the word which is still considered the most offensive in the language" Deborah Lee, Alex Games sees it as "still the ultimate taboo utterance" Geoffrey Hughes calls it "the most seriously taboo word in English" For Tom Aldridge, it is "unarguably the most obscene [and] most forbidden word in English", "the ultimate obscenity", and "the nastiest four-letter word" In her article The C Word: Jack Holland notes that "the word 'cunt' expresse[s] the worst form of contempt one person could feel for another" John Doran describes it as "The most offensive word in the world", "the worst word that anyone has ever been able to think of", and "[the] most terrible of terrible words" It is, according to Sue Clark, "far and away the most offensive word for the British public.

Beatrix Campbell calls it "a radioactive word [ It is Michael Madsen's favourite word: It is also Elton John's favourite word: Rankin, who wore a mask with an 'I'm a cunt' slogan in , describes it as "an amazing word". Deborah Orr provides a neat summary of the word's central functions, invective and empowerment: For many centuries now, the word has been elaborately veiled under the weird and heavy drapes of a disapproval so strong that it has become pre-eminent among forbidden words. For others, though, its use is a mark of worldly and liberal sophistication" The programme, presented by Will Smith, acknowledged the omnipresence of 'cunt' in contemporary life and culture: But for how much longer?

You see, the more you hear it, the more you become immune to its power". The etymology of 'cunt' is actually considerably more complex than is generally supposed. The word's etymology is highly contentious, as Alex Games explains: In Cunt , a chapter from the anthology Dirty Words , Jonathan Wilson notes the word's etymological convolution: Greek Macedonian terms for 'woman' - 'guda', 'gune', and 'gyne' - have been suggested as the word's sources, as have the Anglo-Saxon 'cynd' and the Latin 'cutis' 'skin' , though these theories are not widely supported.

Jay Griffiths , for example, links 'cunt', 'germinate', 'genital', 'kindle', and 'kind' to the Old English 'ge-cynde' and Anglo-Saxon 'ge-cynd' extended to 'ge-cynd-lim', meaning 'womb' ; to this list, Peter Silverton adds 'generate', 'gonards', and 'genetics', derived from the Proto-Indo-European 'gen' or 'gon'. Perhaps the clearest method of structuring the complex etymology of 'cunt' is to approach it letter by letter, and this is the approach I have taken here.

I have examined the Indo-European, Latin, Greek, Celtic, and Dutch linguistic influences on 'cunt', and also discussed the wide variety of the word's contemporary manifestations. The prefix 'cu' is an expression of "quintessential femineity" Eric Partridge, , confirming 'cunt' as a truly feminine term. The synonymy between 'cu' and femininity was in place even before the development of written language: Mark Morton suggests that the Indo-European 'skeu' 'to conceal' is also related. Thus, 'cu' and 'koo', both pronounced 'coo', were ancient monosyllabic sounds implying femininity. Other vaginal slang words, such as 'cooch', 'coot', 'cooter' inspiring the Bizarre headline Cooter Couture in , 'cooz', 'cooze', 'coozie', 'coozy', 'cookie', 'choochy', 'chocha', 'cootch', and 'coochie snorcher' are extensions of them.

Also, heterosexual pornographic films are known as 'cooch reels'. The feminine 'cu' word-base is also the source of the modern 'cow', applied to female animals, one of the earliest recorded forms of which is the Old Frisian 'ku', indicating the link with 'cu'. Other early forms include the Old Saxon 'ko', the Dutch 'koe', the Old Higher German 'kuo' and 'chuo', the German 'kuhe' and 'kuh', the Old Norse 'kyr', the Germanic 'kouz', the Old English 'cy' also 'cua' and 'cyna' , and the Middle English 'kine' and 'kye'. The prefix has also been linked to elliptical thus, perhaps, metaphorically vaginal terms such as 'gud' Indo-European, 'enclosure' , 'cucuteni' 'womb-shaped Roman vase' , 'cod' 'bag' , 'cubby-hole' 'snug place' , 'cove' 'concave chamber' , and 'keel' 'convex ridge'.

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The Italian 'guanto' 'glove' and the Irish 'cuan' 'harbour' may also be related, as they share with 'vagina' the literal meaning 'receptacle'. RF Rattray highlights the connection between femininity and knowledge: Indeed, there is a significant linguistic connection between sex and knowledge: It also has vaginal connotations: The Latin 'cognoscere', related to 'cognate', may indeed be cognate with the sexual organ 'cunt'.

Knowledge-related words such as 'connote', 'canny', and 'cunning' may also be etymologically related to it, though such a connection is admittedly tenuous.

Less debatable is the connection between 'cunctipotent' and 'cunt': Geoffrey Chaucer's 'cunt'-inspired term 'queynte' is yet another link between sex and knowledge, as he uses it to mean both 'vagina' and 'cunning'. In Celtic and modern Welsh, 'cu' is rendered as 'cw', a similarly feminine prefix influencing the Old English 'cwithe' 'womb' , from the Welsh 'cwtch'. Interestingly, 'cwtch' also 'cwtch', with modern forms 'cwts' and 'cwtsh' means 'hollow place' as a noun and is thus another vaginal metaphor and 'hide' as a verb.

Giovanni Boccaccio's term 'val cava' makes a similar association, as he used it to mean both 'cunt' and 'valley' as Jonathon Green notes in From Gropecuntelane To Val Cava , part of the 'cunt' chapter in his Getting Off At Gateshead. The form is also used, in a negative sense, to describe the hatred of women: The female sex androids in Inosensu: Kokaku Kidotai Mamoru Oshii, are called "Gynoids". Sharing the 'cw' prefix is 'cwe', meaning 'woman', influencing the Old English 'cuman' and 'cwene'. Anglicised phonetically, 'cwene' became 'quean', and is related to the Oromotic term 'qena', the Lowland Scottish 'quin', the Dutch 'kween', the Old Higher German 'quena' and 'quina', the Gothic 'quens' and 'qino', the Germanic 'kwenon' and 'kwaeniz', the Old Norse 'kvaen' also 'kvan', 'kvenna', and 'kvinna' , the Middle English 'queene' and 'quene', and the modern English 'quean' and 'queen'.

In fact, this topographical definition is clearly a vaginal metaphor, as valleys are as furrowed and fertile as vaginas although the Welsh slang words for 'vagina' are 'cont' and 'chuint' rather than 'cwm'. Viz magazine William H Bollocks, punned on the sound of the Welsh phrase 'pobol y cwm' 'people of the valley' with 'pobolycwm', defined as "people who like quim". Alternative etymologies for 'quim' include possibilities such as 'cweman' Old English, 'to please' and 'qemar' Spanish, 'to burn'. Variants of 'quim' include 'qwim', 'quiff', 'quin', and 'quem', and it has been combined with 'mince' to form 'quince' 'effeminate'.

Other extended forms of 'quim' include: There is a lesbian magazine titled Quim , and related to the term are the portmanteau words 'queef', 'kweef', 'quiff', and 'queefage', all meaning 'vaginal fart' and derived from 'quim' in combination with 'whiff'. In addition to the clumsily Anglicised 'quim', 'cwm' was also adopted into English with the more accurate phonetic spelling 'coombe', from the Old English 'cumb'.

Indeed, so common is the word in English placenames that Morecambe Bay is often mis-spelt Morecombe: There is also a song titled Biddy Mulligan: In America, 'combe' appears in the name of Buncombe County, from which the slang term 'bunkum' is derived. Congressional representative Felix Walker, ending a long-winded House of Representatives speech in , insisted that he was "bound to make a speech for Buncombe" Jonathon Green, Thus, 'buncombe' became synonymous with nonsensical speech, and was later simplified to 'bunkum'.

We have seen how 'cu' originated as an ancient feminine term. In the Romance languages, the 'cu' prefix became 'co', as in 'coynte', the Italian 'conno' and 'cunno', the Portugese 'cona', and the Catalan 'cony'.

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This 'co' prefix may also suggest a possible link with the Old English 'cot', forerunner of 'cottage', and with 'cod' as in 'codpiece' , 'cobweb', 'coop', 'cog', 'cock', 'chicken', 'cudgel', and 'kobold', though this is not proven. The 'co' prefix is found most abundantly in Spanish, which provides 'concha' 'vagina' , 'chocha' 'lagoon', a vaginal metaphor , and 'cono' 'vagina'. Suzi Feay finds 'cono' preferable to the coarser-sounding 'cunt': There is also a Castilian Spanish variant 'conacho' , and a milder euphemistic form: In Mexico, Spaniards are known colloquially as 'los conos', indicating Mexican surprise at the word's prevalence in Spain.

The transition from 'cu' to 'co' can be seen most clearly in the progression from the Old French 'cun' and 'cunne', to the Middle French 'com' and 'coun', and the modern French 'con'. These terms contain the letter 'n', and this is a clue that their evolution from 'cu' was indirect. The missing link is the Latin term 'cuneus', meaning 'wedge'. Euphemistically, 'coin' means 'conceive', and 'coiner' can refer to a man who impregnates a woman, thus the word has a demonstrably sexual, if not explicitly genital, connection.

Thus, 'cuneiform', 'coin', and 'cunt' share the same etymological origin: The connection between 'cuneus' and 'cunt' is 'cunnus' Latin for 'vagina'; perhaps also related to 'culus', meaning 'anus' , and this connection is most clearly demonstrated by the term 'cunnilingus' 'oral stimulation of the vagina'. In this combination of 'cunnus' and 'lingere' 'to lick' , we can see that 'cunnus' is used in direct reference to the vagina, demonstrating that the 'cun' prefix it shares with 'cunt' is more than coincidental.

The adjective is 'cunnilingual', and cunnilinus is performed by a cunnilinguist. Another link is shown by the 'constrictor cunni', one of the muscles of the vagina. Euphemistic variants of 'cunnilingus' include 'cunnilinctus', 'cumulonimbus', 'cunning lingus', 'Colonel Lingus' t-shirt slogan , 'dunnylingus' incorporating the slang 'dunny', meaning 'toilet', suggesting cunnilingus performed in a bathroom , 'cunnichingus' cunnilingus performed with the chin , 'conulingus' a contraction of 'con you cunnilingus' , and "Canni langi" Michelle Hanson, Viz has created the convoluted euphemisms 'cumulonimbicile' a combination of 'cumulonimbus' and a mis-spelling of 'imbicile', referring to a man who cannot perform cunnilingus , "cumulously nimbate", and "cumulonimbulate" Roger Mellie, There are many terms derived from 'cunnus' that have either literal or metaphorical vaginal or maternal connotations: Also from 'cunnus' is 'cundy', which means 'underground water channel' and is slang for 'vaginal fluid', a vaginal metaphor in the manner of 'cwm'.

The Greek 'kusos', 'kusthos', 'konnos' 'tuft of hair' , and 'konnus' perhaps related to the Egyptian 'ka-t' , all emerged in parallel with 'cunnus'. Along with the Hebrew 'kus' and 'keus', they share an initial 'k' in place of the Latin 'c'. In modern Czech, 'kunda' 'vagina' is an invective equivalent to 'cunt', and is also found in the diminutive form 'kundicka' the closest English equivalent being 'cuntkin'.

In the Volga region of Russia, 'kunka' is a dialect term for 'cunt' related to 'kunat'sja' 'fuck' and 'okunat' 'plunge'. The Norwegian 'kone' 'wife' provides a further variant form, related to the 'ku' and 'cu' feminine prefixes already discussed. Modern Norwegian includes a broad lexicon of related terms, including 'torgkone' 'market-woman' , 'vaskekone' 'washer-woman' , 'gratekone' 'female mourner' , and 'kvinne' 'woman', also spelt 'kvinner' and 'kvinnelig'.

Like Norway's 'kone' and its variants, there are are many other words with similar meanings, also belonging to Scandinavian languages: The Old Dutch 'kunte' later developed into the more Latinate Middle Dutch 'cunte' and 'conte', and the modern Swedish 'kuntte', though the modern Dutch term is 'kutt'. Also spelt 'kut', and extended to 'kutwijf' 'cuntwife' , 'kutt' has been used as the title of the porn magazine Kutt , leading to Lee Carter's 'uncut' pun "live and unKutt" It is interesting that these Dutch examples include the suffixes 'te' and 'tt', as the final 't' of "the most notable of all vulgarisms" has always been "difficult to explain" , according to Eric Partridge, who included 'cunt' in his Dictionary Of Slang And Unconventional English.

The complex etymological jigsaw of this "most notorious term of all" can now be broadly pieced together: The Middle English 'kunte', 'cuntt', 'cunte', 'count', and 'counte' bear the marks of each of these three influences. We have seen how the Celtic 'cwm' was influenced by the feminine prefix 'cu', a topographical vagina metaphor comparing the shape and fertility of valleys and vaginas. Other water-related terms also have similarly vaginal connotations, such as 'cundy' 'underground water channel' , which is a hydrographical vaginal metaphor derived from 'cunnus'.

Similarly, 'cuniculus', also from 'cunnus', means 'passageway', and was applied to Roman drainage systems. Keith Allen and Kate Burridge cite 'cundy' as an early variant of 'conduit', alongside 'cundit', 'kundit', and 'cundut'; they also suggest that 'channel', 'canell', 'canal', and 'kennel' are related to it. The Spanish 'chocha' 'lagoon' is another vaginal metaphor. The Russian 'kunka' describes two hands cupped together carrying water. The vaginal water channel allusion is replicated by the River Kennet in Wiltshire, as Kennet was originally Cunnit: Adjacent to the river is the Roman settlement Cunetio, also spelt Cunetione, Cunetzone, Cunetzione, and Cunetiu though now known as Mildenhall.

The rivers Kent formerly Kenet and Cynwyd share Kennet's etymology, and, as Michael Dames explains, Kennet's link to 'cunt' is readily apparent: The name of that orifice is carried downstream in the name of the river. Cunnit is Cunnt with an extra i. As late as , the peasants of the district had not abandoned the name [ The earliest 'cunt' citation in the Oxford English Dictionary features the word as a component of a London streetname: The street was part of the 'stews', the Southwark red-light district, though its name was not confined only to London.

Bristol also had a Gropecountlane, later shortened to Gropelane, subsequently changed to Hallier's Lane, and finally Nelson Street. Martin Wainwright cites a Grope Lane in York, perhaps a sanitised form of Grapcunt Lane or Gropcunt Lane, which was further sanitised to Grape Lane "by staid Victorians who found the original Grope - historically related to prostitution - too blatant" Keith Briggs lists numerous variants: Other 'cunt'-related placenames include Coombe and Kennet, discussed earlier, the evocative Ticklecunt Creek, and the fictitious "Cunt Hill" Robert Coover, Emma Rees added an extra 'n' to Connecticut to create "Charlotte in Connecticu n t" He cites an area once known as Cunta Heale, which Nicholas P Brooks translates as "cunt-hollow".

Briggs also identifies a curious cluster of Lincolnshire place-names with 'cunt' connections: He also cites Hungery Cunt, which appears on a military map of Scotland in Cleish, though the name is presumably a mis-spelling of Hungeremout. Graeme Donald cites another form of 'cunt' used as a proper noun, this time in medieval surnames, two of which predate the OED 's earliest citation: Explaining that "Any part of the body which was unusual [or] remarkable was likely to provide a convenient nickname or surname for its owner" , James McDonald cites the further example of Simon Sitbithecunte , again predating the OED.

Keith Briggs cites further 'cunt' names: Cruskunt, Twychecunt, and Bluthercuntesaker. Russell Ash provides more recent examples, in a book chapter titled The C-word He also cites names with 'cunt' homophones: It does not stop for them. The man screams after the cab, "You cunt!

A player drops a ball. The men yell, "Cunt! Does it stand for what they hate? In The Simpsons , the name "Cantwell" is a 'cunt' pun: Do not call her by the obvious dirty nickname" Matthew Schofield, The surname Kuntz has a tantalising phonetic similarity to 'Cunts', and is especially notable in the case of WD Kuntz, whose 'cunt' connection is compounded by his position as a gynaecologist. We all feel like that [ Tom Conti has received the same treatment: Gareth McLean wrote that "Conti should probably enter the vernacular as a term of abuse" , owing to its similarity to 'cunt'.

The surname Kant is commonly confused with 'cunt', as Mark Lawson discovered to his cost on a live television programme: Furthermore, the name of a character in the film I'll Never Forget What's 'is Name , Quint, has been interpreted as a reference to 'cunt'. Terence Meaden suggests that legal suppression of 'cunt' constituted "a series of vicious witch hunts encouraged by an evil establishment wishing to suppress what amounted to apparent signs of Goddess beliefs" , and, indeed, there was a Japanese goddess Cunda, a Korean Goddess Quani the Tasmanian 'quani' means 'woman' , a Phoenician priestess Qudshu, a Sumerian priestess Quadasha, and, in India, a goddess known variously as Cunti-Devi, Cunti, Kun, Cunda, Kunda, Kundah, and Kunti, worshipped by the Kundas or Kuntahs.

These names all indicate that 'cunt' and its ancient equivalents were used as titles of respect rather than as insults as does the Egyptian term, 'quefen-t', used by Ptah-Hotep when addressing a goddess. My own surname, Hunt, also has associations with 'cunt', as experienced by a character called Mike Hunt in a Leslie Thomas novel: The Mike Hunt pun can be traced back as early as the 19th century: The hardest word of them all" Mike Hunt is also the name of an American publishing house.

The phrase is found in the Australian drinking toast Mich Hunt's Health That's all they are, really. A bunch of Colin Hunts" Charlie Catchpole, Smut has a comic strip called Kevin Hunt which puns on 'cunt'. Stupid Hunts , a pun on 'stupid cunts', was used as a headline by Total Film magazine in FCUK and Cnut are both tabooed words with their respective middle letters reversed, the difference being that FCUK was a deliberate reference to 'fuck' whereas Cnut was an accidental reference to 'cunt'.

This accidental reference may explain why Canute has now replaced Cnut, in an attempt to Anglicise and elongate the word and thus disguise its similarity to 'cunt'. French Connection initially insisted that the similarity between FCUK and 'fuck' was merely coincidental, though they soon dropped their false modesty by pressing charges against the rival Cnut Attitude clothing brand.

Their t-shirt slogans are: His name now prompts predictable double-entendres, such as this from Simon Carr: Or, more accurately, King Cnut gestures I'm glad I'm not dyslexic " Private Eye punned on the name with its headline Silly Cnut in A Daily Star feature on the programme somewhat missed the point with the headline You Cnut Be Serious , using Cnut as a pun on 'cannot'. The euphemistic Spoonerism 'cunning stunts' 'stunning cunts' relies not on rhyme but on a reversal of the initial letters, a trick later imitated by Kenny Everett's "dangerously named" Mark Lewisohn, comedy character Cupid Stunt, a Spoonerism of 'Stupid Cunt'.

Furthermore, 'Cunning Stunts' is also the name of an advertising agency and a female theatre group. Richard Christopher cites two further 'cunt' Spoonerisms both of which are rather sexist: The bawdy comedy film Carry On Constable is a pun on the c-word, with its phrase "silly constable" further emphasising the joke Gerald Thomas, Ned Ward has reversed the syllables of 'constable' to create "stablecunt" , and 'constable' has also been rendered as 'cunt stubble' and 'cony-fumble'.

Another euphemism for 'cunt' is 'the big C': No, I'm not talking Cancer. I'm talking Cunt" Anthony Petkovich, The phrase was used as the headline for an article about 'cunt' by Joan Smith The Big C , , however it is also the name of a shopping centre and garage in Thailand. Similar terms are 'red c' 'red cunt', a pun on 'Red Sea' and 'open C' 'open cunt'. Other words termed 'big C' include 'cancer' and 'cocaine', and 'cirrhosis'.

Even 'C' in isolation has also been used as a substitute for 'cunt', as in "the Cs of Manchester United" Paul Wheeler, - a phrase which is seemingly innocuous yet also readily understood as an insult. A handy two-birds-with-one-stone euphemism for both 'fuck' and 'cunt' is the phrase 'effing and ceeing' thus, 'Woking FC' officially stands for 'Woking Football Club' though has also been extended to 'Woking Fucking Cunts'. Eva Mendes created the extraordinary "motherfuckingcuntwhorebitch" Chris Hewitt, , and Douglas Coupland created the shorter portmanteu word "Fuckshitpisscunt" No prizes for guessing what the first draft of that joke was!

It has also been intentionally mis-spelt as "cund" Viz , Ruth Wajnryb notes the print media's coy treatment of the word: A good test of this is how a word is treated in the media. Most print media still baulk at printing CUNT, resorting to the rather quaint convention of asterisk substitution" Using other characters, especially asterisks, to replace letters often vowels , serves to accentuate a word's obscenity, drawing attention to its unprintability.

Though the word 'cunt' is printed by some British newspapers, it never appears in a large font size, and is therefore never used in headlines. This tendency was parodied by Private Eye with a spoof headline about cricketer Kevin Pietersen: An Apology , , and a spoof headline about political divisions: The last two examples were in reference to the leaking of emails by David Beckham in which he used the word 'cunt', leading to two jokes in Private Eye: American newspapers are much more cautious about references to swear words in general, and 'cunt' in particular practically the only exception being The Village Voice , which used the headline Cunt Candy Factory for an article by Tristan Taormino about "disembodied replicas of porn stars' famous bits [moulded into] plaster cunts" in As we shall see later, not only is 'cunt' a taboo in America, but discussion of this taboo is also a taboo in itself.

Thus, while a few British newspapers print 'cunt' in full, and all British newspapers gleefully use the phrase 'the c-word' to describe any word starting with that letter, American newspapers often refuse even to print 'the c-word', let alone printing 'cunt' itself. Bertagnoli's article identified a phenomenon she termed "linguistic bleaching", suggesting that 'cunt' is changing its linguistic value through cultural repetition. She argues that, with the word's creeping presence on cable television and in general conversation, it is becoming an increasingly neutral term in casual speech.

However, her article, and its by British standards, quite mild headline, were considered too strong by the Chicago Tribune editors, who decided at the last minute to remove it while the newspaper was actually being distributed. The article had already been printed, so the section in which it appeared was physically removed from the newspaper, though some early copies could not be recalled and the newspaper's censorship of itself was viewed with both scorn and humour by American media commentators.

However, none of the commentators who criticised the Tribune actually used the word 'cunt' themselves. In a radio report about the scandal, for example, Bob Garfield referred to "a word beginning with 'c' and rhyming with 'shunt' [ Lisa Bertagnoli herself, the author of the suppressed article, sees the word as "something vile and hurtful, to be reclaimed", and maintains that women of her generation are not offended by the word: By contrast, she admits that the typical response from older women is somewhat less accepting: Never use that word.

I would faint if somebody said it to me". An affectionately disguised variant of 'cunt' is 'cunny', whose variants include 'cunnie', 'cunni', 'cunnyng', 'cunicle', 'conny', 'coney', 'conney', 'conie', and 'cunnikin'. Bunny Rogers wrote a poetry collection titled Cunny Poem in William Shakespeare hinted at this second meaning in Love's Labour's Lost , juxtaposing 'incony' with 'prick' 'penis': Related are 'conyger' meaning 'warren' and also spelt 'conynger', from the Middle English 'conygere' , the Anglo-Latin 'coningera' and 'conigera', and the Latin 'cunicularium'. The word also appears in Old French, as 'conniniere', 'coniniere', 'coniliere', and 'connilliere'.

Perhaps in an effort to minimise the scurrilous impact of 'cunny', 'cony' was phased out of common usage and the meaning of 'rabbit' was extended to animals both young and old. Spanish and French provide strikingly similar examples: The Spanish 'conejo' means both 'rabbit' and 'cunt', and the similar Spanish term 'conejita' 'bunny girl' provides another link between the two elements. The similarity of 'cony' to 'cunny' is echoed by the relationship between 'count' and 'cunt': Indeed, the title 'count' is rendered in Gaelic as 'cunta'.

The Gaelic 'cunta', with an acute accent over the 'u', means 'assistant. Keith Briggs cites place-name suffixes such as Le Cunte derived from 'count'. As early as a direct and bawdy comparison between 'Earl' and 'Count' was made by Stephen Valenger:. The phonetic similarity of 'Count' to 'cunt' is so striking that accidental obscenities abound: She Inadvertently left out, O, in the pronuntiation of the Word Count [ The programme has also used "bunch of cundurangos" as a pun on 'bunch of cunts'; John FD Northover, An identical instance occurred when the first 'O' of a fake cinema sign was lower than the rest of the text: In the s, a sign in a Japanese railway station advertised 'Discunt Tickets', a misprint of 'Discount Tickets'; similarly, the menu for London restaurant Bengal City misprinted 'Discount' as 'Discocunt'.

Bangkok University's School of Accounting's logo replaces the 'o' of 'Accounting' with a graphic representing a ship, rendering it as 'Acc unting'. Like 'count', 'countdown' also has comic potential if its 'o' is removed, as we shall see later. This last example, 'Charlie Hunt', is especially significant, as its abbreviated form 'Charlie' has entered the common vernacular as merely a term of mild reproach.

The expression 'proper Charlie', for example, is used frequently without causing offence, as its connection to 'cunt' has been forgotten. Although 'Charlie Hunt' is the most often cited origin of the abbreviation 'Charlie', another possible source is 'Charlie Ronce', which is rhyming slang for 'ponce'. It has been abbreviated to 'grumble', though this abbreviation is frequently a reference to pornography, so-called because heterosexual porn includes images of vaginas 'grumble and grunts'. In this pornographic sense, 'grumble' has been extended to form 'grumbled' 'caught in the act of masturbation', a pun on 'rumbled' , 'grumblehound' 'constant seeker of porn' , 'grummer' 'porn magazines' , 'jumble grumble' and 'grumble sale' 'cheap pornography' , 'grumbleweed' 'weak from excessive masturbation' , 'grumbelows' 'sex shop' , 'grumbler' 'pornography vendor' , and 'grumbilical chord' 'connecting lead for porn TV channels', a pun on 'umbilical chord'.

It is from this that the mild insult 'berk' also 'birk', 'burk', and the Australian 'burke' is abbreviated, thus, as Jonathon Green explains, "when [people] say 'You're a right berk', what they're actually saying is 'You're a right cunt', which is much more obscene" Kerry Richardson, In this sense, 'berk' is similar to 'Charlie', as both are common, mild insults whose origins as rhyming slang for 'cunt' have been forgotten. In a spoof article supposedly written by Boris Johnson, Private Eye defined "Berkely Hunt" a mis-spelling of either 'Berkeley Hunt' or 'Berkley Hunt' as "Darius Guppy", in a reference to Johnson's association with Guppy tarnishing his public image; the magazine also combined 'Berkeley Hunt' and 'cunning stunts' to create the headline Berkeley Stunts ; later that year, it punned on the name Anton du Beke with "Anton Du Berk" ; and it also punned on Sally Bercow's surname: Other Cockney rhyming slang 'cunt' euphemisms are 'all quiet' from All Quiet On The Western Front ; extended to 'all quiet on the breast an' cunt' , 'eyes front', 'Grannie Grunt', 'groan and grunt', 'gasp and grunt', 'growl and grunt', 'sharp and blunt', and 'National Front'.

The Cockney pronunciation of 'cunt' was evocatively captured by Clark Collis "You cahnt! The Yorkshire equivalent is "coont" Peter Silverton, , and in Jamaican patois it is "cohnnnt" Marlon James, In backslang, 'cunt' is 'tenuc' and 'teenuc' the extra letters being added to facilitate pronunciation , and 'cunt' in pig Latin is 'untcay'.

A word with so many hard consonants in it in short a short time: A feminist pressure-group called 'Cunst', an anagram of 'cunts' and a pun on 'kunst' German for 'art' campaigned in against male domination of the Turner Prize. In a Top Gear episode Phil Churchward, , Jeremy Clarkson noted that there were "a lot of anagrams going on here" on various car registration plates, followed by a shot of his own plate, CTU N. The euphemism 'see you next Tuesday' utilises each letter of 'cunt' individually, with 'see you' sounding like 'c u', and 'n t' being the respective initial letters of 'next' and 'Tuesday'.

Time Out magazine created posters with the slogan 'See you next Tuesday' in See You Next Tuesday is also the title of a play adapted from the film Le Diner De Cons , thus both the play and the film have 'cunt'-related titles. Similar to 'see you next Tuesday' is "see you in Toledo" Brooke Gladstone, , though in this case the letter 'n' is provided by a contraction of 'in'.

This spoof organisation placed a classified advertisement in the Kuwait Times: Then you need the Kuwait Union for New Teachers. They have also printed the text onto a t-shirt. Madonna made a similar joke in by creating a fake radio station, with a DJ announcing: Similarly, embedded within an article by Sally Vincent is the line "Point A moved to point B to point C until" , which is arguably an intentional reference.

There is no ambiguity whatsoever surrounding "-cunthorpe", a deliberate truncation of the Humberside town Scunthorpe on the back cover of a book by Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie Likewise, when a knight in Thomas Heywood's Wisewomen Of Hogsdon declares, in Latin, "Nobis ut carmine dicunt", he is described as "a beastly man" to highlight the embedded obscenity.

Mrs Roberts didn't like him, but that's 'cos she's a Contaminated water can really make you sick"; Trey Parker, and 'applicant' Dominic Brigstocke, As John Hamilton explains in an letter quoted by Linda Mugglestone , 'cunt' has "the same syllable as a contraction of Contra". High Voltage puns on the word's phonetic similarity to 'Cantonese': Oz made a similar pun on 'conjugal': Matthew Parris once called 'cunt' "a word beginning with 'c', which I couldn't possibly repeat" Rod Liddle, , and in keeping with this is the commonest 'cunt' euphemism: Simon Carr reports that his children confuse 'the c-word' with "the K-word" He also quotes their confusion over 'cunt' itself: That's a rude word, isn't it?

Ruth Wajnryb writes "the 'SEE'-word" , to distinguish it from the hard 'c' sound of 'cunt'. If 'cunt' can be a 'c-word', can 'cock' be one, too? A surprisingly large number of these other words beginning with 'c' have also occasionally been called 'the c-word', usually for comic effect.

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The following is a representative selection. No surprise, then, that he is a fan of the c-word. In fact, not only is Musk a regular player of the computer game known as Civilization , which is all about husbanding resources to build an epic human community, but that word peppers his public utterances" BBC World Service, ; "Catholicism: Not the c-word, a c-word" Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, ; "They definitely had the c-word: Conscience and Cyclothymia" Alexandra Mullen, ; "[Christopher] Nolan's script, co-authored with his brother Jonathan, never deigns to use the c-word: Catwoman" Robbie Collin, ; "non-carcinogenic [ Uh oh, the other dreaded c-word.

Cut" The Sun , ; "the c-word: These are not conservatories" Jon Stock, ; "Could you make it more celebratory? Hey, we're all guys here, I'll say it: Paul Casey, ; "isn't that Italian "champagne"? No, no, please don't mention the C-word" Johnny Morris, ; 'Curle': The "C" word" Fiona Phillips, ; 'comradely': Mr Clinton had charisma" Patrick Barkham, ; 'Clinton': Obama carefully avoided using the "c-word," as some in Washington termed it, though his description of events certainly sounded couplike" Peter Baker, ; 'Clegg': Carter" Mark Hosenball, ; "I would include Emanuelle And The Last Cannibals other than just, you know, because the title uses the c-word" Calum Waddell, ; "I don't want to use the 'C' word, chokers, so I am not going to" Commentatorballs , ; "[He] looked like someone who didn't even know what the C-word might be.

The revue show The C Word revolved around three c-words: Mark Mason's novel The C Words discusses 'commitment', 'coupledom', and 'children'. Grace Chin wrote a play about commitment titled The C-Word in There was even a c-word reference in a TV commercial for Phileas Fogg crisps After it was reported that Donald Trump called a woman a word beginning with 'c' and ending with 't', Stephen Colbert misunderstood for comic effect: The most frequent word, other than 'cunt', to be termed 'the c-word', is 'cancer': They don't mean Cancer.

They mean Commitment" John Allen Lee, There have been several books about cancer whose titles include references to 'the c-word': A cancer-awareness comedy event titled The 'C' Word was held in Toronto in Newspaper headlines often use the phrase 'the c-word' to pun on other contentious terms beginning with that letter: It's a strong word, sure, but more so in America.

In England it's just like any other curse word". The most common example of this is 'Christmas', which, like 'cancer', can be seen as an alternative 'c-word'. The headline Don't Mention The C-Word , for example, is about the removal of the word 'Christmas' from secular greetings cards.

In the article, Richard Littlejohn asks, rhetorically: He has fun inventing phrases such as "Father C-word", "C-word Eve", and "C-word Day", all attempts to highlight the absurdity of banning the word 'Christmas'.

1. Dialoghi politici e Lettere (Italian Edition).
2. Thomas Aquinas: Moral Philosophy.
3. Poca favilla gran fiamma seconda.
4. Addressing Domestic Violence Against Women: An Unfinished Agenda;

Less festively, he also bemoans the culture of liberalism, 'political correctness', and ' Guardian istas' in other words, his usual targets , asking: But try the other C-word". As if that wasn't enough, Littlejohn went on to essentially repeat himself two Christmases later, in another article also headlined Don't Mention The C Word "the dreaded C Word [ Cricket experts were aghast at the "inappropriate use of the c-word"", in a spoof article headlined Kevin Pietersen In C-Word Drama That final example, from The Sun 's coverage of a speech by Gordon Brown, also resulted in a Sun leader column headlined C Ironically, after David Cameron goaded Brown for not saying 'cuts', when Cameron himself became Prime Minister, he used the euphemism 'difficult decisions' to avoid saying 'cuts'.

The sheer extent of the 'cunt' lexicon supports Scott Capurro's assertion that it is "plainly the most versatile word in the English language" Capurro also notes the variety of reactions provoked by the word: Some people will try to be smug about it and think, "Well, that does nothing for me". And the person sitting right next to that person could be completely moved by the word, emotionally drawn to somebody who uses that word, you know. And the person sitting next to that person could be someone who's completely disgusted by it.

It's one of those great words that can get many, many different reactions from people. This ideology, which was originally termed cunt-power, sought to invert the word's injurious potential - to prevent men using it as a misogynist insult, women assertively employed it themselves: The new cunt would be matriarchal, feminist" Peter Silverton, The feminist Cunt-Art movement incorporated the word into paintings and performances, and several female writers have campaigned for its transvaluation.

In my evaluation of the ideology of cunt-power, I discuss the extent of its practicality, popularity, and longevity. However, words do hurt us, and they can be used as weapons. Walter Kirn has called 'cunt' "the A-bomb of the English language [ Verbal weapons cause intense emotional pain. GQ has noted that "No word is more hurtful or destructive than the C-word" Catherine MacKinnon cites numerous examples of abusive language provoking distress and resulting in litigation. Asserting that "A woman worker who was referred to by a [presumed male] co-worker as a 'cunt' could present a strong case for sexual harassment" , she quotes "Cavern Cunt", "stupid cunt", "fucking cunt", and "repeated use of the word 'cunt'" as phrases resulting in convictions for sexual harassment.

Just as 'cunt' can be a violent word, its use can also have violent repercussions: By contrast, however, a more recent case was dismissed when it was ruled that the word 'cunt' did not constitute sexual harassment: A female student at Colorado University had alleged that another student called her a 'cunt'. Hoffman was ridiculed by the press, not least because the name of her university is commonly abbreviated to 'CU': When men use the word 'cunt' to insult women, courts have deemed the act to be unlawful.

When men use it to insult other men, as Julia Penelope demonstrates, their usage is still inherently insulting to women: Signe Hammer explained that to call a man a 'cunt' "is to call him a woman: The other male insults cited by Penelope are also tangential insults to women: He calls it "the four-letter word a man can use to destroy everything with a woman [ Kirn explains the offensiveness of 'cunt' with reference to its plosive phonetics and its semantic reductionism: It strips away any aura of uniqueness".

A character in the Hungarian film Taxidermia also notes the ugliness of the word, or rather its Hungarian equivalent. Somewhat insensitively, Kirn feels that women over-react to the word when it is used against them: It doesn't leave a mark. Yet women treat its deployment as tantamount to an act of nonphysical domestic violence". He also ignores the word's feminist reclamation, stating incorrectly: Essentially, Kirn's article is a macho defence of what he sees as the male privilege to call women cunts: When a man has already lost the argument and his girl is headed out the door [we] have one last, lethal grenade to throw".

Unsurprisingly, women wrote to GQ to take issue with Kirn's article. Kim Andrew stressed that Kirn's definition of 'cunt' as "the A-bomb of the English language" does not apply to the UK, where it is used more freely than in America: M Restrepo's reaction was that, provided 'cunt' is not used insultingly as Kirn employs it , it should not be tabooed: Cunt is no longer taboo. In welcome contrast to Kirn's article, Jonathon Green criticises the inherent patriarchy of the slang lexicon: This is a trend which has noticeably increased over time, as Germaine Greer explains: Specifically, the status and deployment of 'cunt' as "The worst name anyone can be called [and] the most degrading epithet" Germaine Greer, [a] , and especially as the worst name a woman can be called, serves to reinforce the tradition of cultural patriarchy, as Jane Mills points out: Smith calls 'cunt' "the worst possible thing - much worse than ['prick'] - one human being can say to another" and Simon Carr calls it "the worst thing you can say about anyone" As Deborah Cameron notes, "taboo words tend to refer to women's bodies rather than men's.

Thus for example cunt is a more strongly tabooed word than prick, and has more tabooed synonyms" Jonathon Green concurs that "the slang terms for the vagina outstrip any rivals, and certainly those for the penis [ William Leith notes that "We may have equality of the sexes but we do not have equality of sexual organs [ I can print the words prick, cock and dick as much as I like", adding coyly: Ed Vulliamy makes the same point: The inequality of 'prick' and 'cunt' is also explored in the HBO series Curb Your Enthusiasm David Steinberg, , after the central character uses 'cunt' as an insult towards another man:.

Pricks and cunts, they're equal. According to Brigid McConville and John Shearlaw, 'cunt' "reflects the deep fear and hatred of the female by the male in our culture. It is a far nastier and more violent insult than 'prick' which tends to mean foolish rather than evil. This violent usage is a constant and disturbing reminder to women of the hatred associated with female sexuality and leaves women with few positive words to name their own organs" The 'cunt' taboo is but the most extreme example of a general taboo surrounding the lexicon of the female genitals: The word 'vagina' is also subject to this taboo: Braun and Wilkinson cite examples of the term being banned from billboards "the London Underground banned a birth control advertisement - deeming it 'offensive' for including the word 'vagina'" and theatrical posters "Promotional material for theatrical pieces whose titles contained the word vagina has been censored [ Indeed, after surveying women's own attitudes, Sophie Laws discovered that they even felt obligated to self-censor their own discourse: Virginia Braun and Celia Kitzinger published a 'survey of surveys', revealing the extent to which 'vagina' is a tabooed word: The German equivalent is even more demeaning: Word-meanings are dictated by consensus and contemporary usage, thus negative meanings can be reversed when pejorative terms are systematically reappropriated: Melinda Yuen-Ching Chen and Robin Brontsema have both described the specific reappropriation of 'queer', though they also discuss the concept of reappropriation in general.

Brontsema provides a succinct definition of the terminology: He views the process as a harnessing and reversal of the original invective: Laying claim to the forbidden, the word as weapon is taken up and taken back by those it seeks to shackle - a self-emancipation that defies hegemonic linguistic ownership and the a buse of power". Chen defines reclamation as "an array of theoretical and conventional interpretations of both linguistic and non-linguistic collective acts in which a derogatory sign or signifier is consciously employed by the 'original' target of the derogation, often in a positive or oppositional sense" The focus here is primarily on feminist reappropriations, specifically on feminist attempts to reclaim 'cunt' and other abusive terms: The mainstream success of reappropriations, however, depend upon the consensus of the population as a whole: The commonest derogative term for a woman - 'bitch' - is on the road to reclamation.

A woman should be proud to declare she is a Bitch, because Bitch is Beautiful. It should be an act of affirmation by self and not negation by others" Casey Miller and Kate Smith discuss this transvaluation of 'bitch' and also cite "Groups of feminists who choose to call themselves witches [ Other formerly derogatory terms for women have also been reclaimed: Witch, bitch, dyke, and other formerly pejorative epithets turned up in the brave names of small feminist groups" Gloria Steinem, Mary Daly has attempted to reverse the negative associations of words such as 'spinster', 'witch', 'harpy', 'hag', and 'crone'.

Where she is able to demonstrate non-pejorative etymological origins of these terms, she advocates a reversal of their current definitions. Daly does readily admit that not every modern negative term was originally positive 'crone', for example, has always implied old age , though in these cases she assert that negative connotations are a patriarchal perception: For women who have transvalued this, a Crone is one who should be an example of strength, courage and wisdom" In an episode of the sitcom Veep , 'crone' is confused with the c-word: I was like, 'What an old crone!

Regularly used as a pejorative term [ As Roz Wobarsht wrote in a letter to the feminist magazine Ms: Our use takes away the power of the words to damage us" Jane Mills adds that "crumpet has recently been appropriated by women to refer to men [and] women today are making a conscious attempt to reform the English language [including] the reclamation and rehabilitation of words and meanings" Maureen Dowd notes the "different coloration" of 'pimp' and charts the transition of 'girl' "from an insult in early feminist days to a word embraced by young women".

A less likely pioneer of reclamation is the self-styled 'battle-axe' Christine Hamilton, though her celebratory Book Of British Battle-Axes nevertheless marked a re-evaluation of the term. Julie Bindel cites 'bird' and 'ho' as "blatant insults [ Patrick Strudwick praises Bint Magazine for "reclaiming the term "bint" from the huge slag heap of misogynist smears and turning it into something fabulous" The offensive term 'slut' has also been reclaimed as an epithet of empowerment: Kate Spicer suggests that 'slut' is "a term of abuse that has been redefined by fashion to mean something cool [ In the s, Katharine Whitehorn famously used her column in The Observer to self-identify as a 'slut', using the term in its original sense meaning a slovenly woman.



1. Blasphemy - Wikipedia.
2. Seacats Risen.
3. Another take on the Facebook breastfeeding protest - The F-Word.
4. Kaafir, the New F-word | www.newyorkethnicfood.com?
5. Aquinas: Moral Philosophy | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

In , Bea Miller released the song S. In , the campaigning group SlutWalk Toronto organised a series of 'slutwalks' - demonstrations in which women marched while wearing sexually-provocative clothing and holding banners reappropriating the word 'slut'. The SlutWalk campaign provoked considerable feminist debate, with Gail Dines and Wendy J Murphy arguing that the protesters were fighting a lost cause: But the focus on "reclaiming" the word slut fails to address the real issue. The word is so saturated with the ideology that female sexual energy deserves punishment that trying to change its meaning is a waste of precious feminist resources" Germaine Greer was more enthusiastic about the SlutWalk phenomenon, though she cautioned that "It's difficult, probably impossible, to reclaim a word that has always been an insult" and she should know.

Here, the principal is the same as that pioneered by Madonna: It is not simply the word 'slut' that is being redefined, it is the lifestyle that the word represents - the meaning of the term 'slut' has stayed the same, though the cultural acceptance of its characteristics has increased. As Chinese is a tonal language, the same word can have multiple meanings depending on its pronunciation; this has been used subversively by women to reappropriate the pejorative term 'shengnu' 'leftover women' , which can also mean 'victorious women' when pronouced with a different tone.

This "pun that turns the tables on the prejudicial description" gained popularity following the television series The Price Of Being A Victorious Woman Tatlow, [a]. It is important to note the distinction between changing a word's definition and changing its connotation. Women have sought not to change the definitions of for example 'cunt' or 'slut', but instead to alter the cultural connotations of the terms. Thus, the reclaimed word 'cunt' is still defined as 'vagina' and the reclaimed 'slut' still means 'sexual predator'. But at the same time it is serious and God-honouring.

I genuinely think that not since C S Lewis have we had a Christian author who has addressed his current generation in such a culture-attuned way. Any genuine searcher would benefit from this book — and non-searchers might just be spurred to begin a search after engaging with Maltz. Also, this book, whilst not being targeted in a gender specific way, is certainly one that any Christian man could comfortably give to a non-Christian male.

There is nothing in this that should cause embarrassment. Its not tub-thumping, just good plain Christian apologetic in a modern idiom. Steve Maltz has a style of writing that keeps you reading and his hope is obviously that this book will get into the hands of those who need it desperately but do not necessarily know that they do. Many aspects of our faith are explained quite simply and difficult issues like un-Christian behaviour by professing Christians, which do such a disservice to Our Lord, are acknowledged with sorrow.

One of the most honest and open defence and explanation of our faith that I have read. Steve adopts a chatty, colloquial tone; the book, and the chapters within it, are short and to the point. I would recommend it to anyone. Steve Maltz is a freelance web consultant, writer, tour guide, blogger and the founder of Saffron Planet, the award-winning web radio initiative. This is his ninth book. He is married with three sons and two freeloading cats and lives in East London. Praying the Jesus Prayer. The Story of Reality. Where the Hell Is God? The Bad Christian's Manifesto.

Looking Through the Cross. The Revd Dr Graham Tomlin. God in All Things. The Biggest Lie in the History of Christianity. Religion is for Fools! Christian Belief for Everyone: Touched by His Love. Standing on My Knees. Struggling To Be Holy. Choosing to Be Catholic. To be delivered in the event of my death. Unable to Avoid Jesus. The Art of Confession. Take a Closer Look. Navigating the Sea of Talmud.

Paradoxology (book review) | Evangelicals Now

The Heart is a Noisy Room. Falling is Easy, Walking is Hard. The Intercessions Resource Book. Follow in His Footprints. What Kind of God? The Mysterious Love Of God. The Dis-ease of Lies. How to See Religion Differently. Christianity Killed Christ; Science will be the Resurrection. Power from the Word.