cussin': c or d?

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aka potty mouth.

inspired by reading something of an il*'ers today...profanity. i can pretty vulgar in my daily life. (the word fuck spews from my lips with an alarming ease.) but i still find myself strangely reticent about cursing in print, especially my writing.

― jess, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

um...shit, damn, boobies.

― jess, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I swear more in print than out loud, but for some reason I got the idea that ILE was polite society so I must be, uh, polite...where did i get that idea?

― Maria, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

have you read the sex threads ?!!
ILE is a bazzaar often loud noisy anddd crowded , with all of us having our little booths , most of us selling clever and decadent filth .

― anthony, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

anthony, if maria read the sex threads, we could all end up sharing a cell with gary glitter. ;)

― jess, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

we are suggesting she read them , not use them as a manual

― anthony, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I'm not as nasty as I wnna be

― Mike Hanle y, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I don't swear in typing...it'd be too forced and unnatural for me...I'd have to be thinking about inserting a swear word, which would quite frankly be silly for me. Though, I have nothing against other people's use of language.

― james, Wednesday, 17 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

the only word i don't like using is the c word. oh, OK, cunt. there, i said it. i usually try and think of cleverer ways to swear than the usual fuck, shit etc but v. often i can't. shit is my favourite cuss.

― katie, Wednesday, 17 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Favourite swearphrase = buckets of fuck.

Oh god, my head has stopped working entirely.

― RickyT, Wednesday, 17 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

to be really tacky: Captain Whakatamera. nice ethinic influence. Come ot think of it it looks even stupider in print. Maybe there is something to be said for keeping profanity out of the written language.

― Menelaus Darcy, Wednesday, 17 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Classic. Inserting fuckedy into words. Swearing is excellent - including cunt though in debate people use pottymouth as an excuse to switch off.

― chris, Wednesday, 17 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

it's not an excuse chris! although i swear a lot i do actually believe that if you have something important to say it can be said civilly, and is often the more effective for it. if you're just going to start effing and blinding then i'll choose to assume that the swearing is being used as a subsitute for any content. basically if you're not going to be polite then i'm not gonna listen.

all of the above however does not apply when drunk :):)

― katie, Wednesday, 17 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

oh, that sounded so sanctimonious - i'm sorry. i just think that people who swear (i.e. everyone, including myself) should do so with some style and elan. as soon as anyone uses the word "cunt" as an insult i lose respect for them - it sounds so (deep breath) common.

― katie, Wednesday, 17 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I like swearing in print, especially when it's unexpected. Like the review of Ozzfest, I think, in the Guardian where it reported how the lead singer of Papa Roach, once again I think, invited the audience to eat a bowl of fuck.

― Jonnie, Wednesday, 17 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I use it *because* it's the only one people still get offended by. What's the good of a swear-word if it's not offensive?

(Katie I am allowed to post this it is lunch break!!)

― Tom, Wednesday, 17 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

hm. OK Tom you are let off (for the lunch break :))

but the thing is that cunts *arent* offensive (unless the woman in question has v bad personal hygiene). so should they become a byword for a loathsome and horrible person? if you say someone is a dickhead or a prick or a knob or a bellend it's not nearly as offensive and i WANT TO KNOW WHY!

BTW "a bowl of fuck" = NICE. now *that's* style!

― katie, Wednesday, 17 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Well yeah politically I think it is bad that cunt is the most offensive word because obviously it's really misogynistic that it is so. But pragmatically speaking it works. I suppose in my head I kind of think of it as two words with different meanings that happen to be spelt the same. Like when I say "Fucking hell" I am not implying that I believe in a Biblical hell or that it is being fucked. However I do appreciate that most people do not *hear* 'cunt' and 'cunt' as two words with different meanings that happen to be spelt the same.

― Tom, Wednesday, 17 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

'S patriarchy innit?

― RickyT, Wednesday, 17 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i think the reason i hate it so much is that when i were growing up in Essex it were mainly used by sad, smelly and brainless men who pronounced it "cahnt", used it like punctuation and ironically had NO CHANCE of ever being let near any sane woman's cunt.

― katie, Wednesday, 17 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

and the Gallaghers with their "coonts" - now there is an example of two people having absolutely NOTHING to say except to mumble some vague obscenities. ARARRRRGHHHHHHH i hate them!!!

― katie, Wednesday, 17 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

coonts

Grrrr

― RickyT, Wednesday, 17 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

well that's how the NME spelled it.

― katie, Wednesday, 17 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Exactly.

― Richard Tunnicliffe, Wednesday, 17 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I like calling people Bitchy McBitch.

― Ally, Wednesday, 17 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

An American Movie has some of the best swearing that I have ever heard in my life. I can't remember any of the fuckers though.

― Jonnie, Wednesday, 17 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I don't care, really. People who use it as name calling when people disagree with them because they can't come up with a decent argument are kind of weak, though.

― Nicole, Wednesday, 17 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Katie: when you *choose to assume* the argument has no content, isn't that like making an excuse? Surely to be offended about anything, unless you're massively, instinctively shocked by it, is a conscious decision? Actually bollocks, you're right, I'm arguing for the sake of it, once it's serious it should be civil.

Regarding why the c-word is so much ruder, Germaine Greer writes in the Female Eunuch about the word being more than slang for vagina but also having a male *implication of expected tightness* that makes it so deep-down offensive. Worth a read.

I don't think the c-word is the worst word now: if you're white, the n-word (derogatory racist slur which I now find I can't even type) is worse. Is anyone who isn't black here prepared to even type it? Does anyone here who is black use it to refer to themself in a reclaiming fashion?

― chris, Wednesday, 17 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

we had a discussion about this oo, about a month ago? i made vague noises about reclaiming it but Nitsuh told me off and quite rightly too. Ronan on the other hand wants to use it. i just wanna sing along with Busta Rhymes!

― katie, Wednesday, 17 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

A lot of it depends on geography as well. In Edinburgh, "cunt" is practically a term of affection, and certainly a lot more widespread and therefore considered less offensive than it is in London. This is something Charles and I have a constant battle to remember in the office, trying as we are to avoid being sacked.

Two other examples: wasn't there some memo sent round by BBC local radio about where you could and couldn't say "twat"? As I understand it there are some places where twat=cunt, and a lot of places where twat=twit, ie, my mum wouldn't bat an eyelid if I called somebody a twat. Also (and I'm starting to get really sketchy here) in southern Spain it's fine to call someone a cunt (can't remember the translation, something like "conyo"?) but if you call someone a "bastard" you're likely to get your head kicked in.

Jonathan Green did a signing for his Dictionary of Slang when I worked at the Brighton shop, and the point he made was basically that words are words and as soon as you start censoring language you're on a slippery slope... I reckon I probably agree.

― Andrew Williams, Wednesday, 17 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I try to cuss less just so I won't get confused with Snoop Dogg. Fuck finds itself in my speech a lot though. I've always felt cunt was really harsh (in the US) and never used it but lately I've saved it as the supreme insult to another woman. (hypocritical i know)

― Samantha, Wednesday, 17 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

fuckin cunt of a question if you fuckin ask me.

― Geoff, Wednesday, 17 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

luckily, no-one did :)

― katie, Wednesday, 17 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i have read some of the sex threads but still i feel like i shouldn't swear on ile. it is inexplicable.

i don't like the word cunt. i would prefer to use any of a dozen synonyms for whore. they're more interesting.

― Maria, Wednesday, 17 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Swearing is best if you have an acTOR's voice.

― DG, Wednesday, 17 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Best insult I've heard lately: Saying a woman has man breasts.

― Sam-at-home, Wednesday, 17 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

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