The c-word

f) depends on context

Started bcz I feel a bit winded and nauseous every time I see this thread: By Request: Sharon Osbourne - Cunt Or Great?

Oh omar if I put that it wld have landslid.

Kinda d, e and f. Basically when directed at men it doesn't seem misogynist to me but when directed at women it always does.

That excludes non-abusive use of the word which seems fair enough.

honey cnut cheerios

Voted British.

I think it is just damn ugly but I am a woman who lives in America & was also brought up here.

Context really is key here. I have to admit that sometimes I love it but when used by a man to describe a woman if can definitely be a o_O.

the word "cuntal" - lol or mega-lol?

'Cunt' is the only swear word that actually still works. It's the only swear word I would never even think of using in front of my mother. This is its magic and its power and I'm happy to vote for 'way harsh and definitely offensive!'

Oh God:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNmkxXxmAX8

Gay and Dyke used to be considered very offensive - it's all so temporary and relative and goddamned stupid.

None of these options really work for me. Context-sensitive indeed.

vote 'linguist' option, context people

Language happens in a shifting context doesn't mean that some words in some contexts aren't deliberately hurtful/offensive/designed to diminish or exclude.

Sorry that was a xxpost

Henry Green Interview

I got the idea of Loving from a manservant in the fire service
during the war. He was serving with me in the ranks, and he told
me he had once asked the elderly butler who was over him what
the old boy most liked in the world. The reply was: “Lying in bed
on a summer morning, with the window open, listening to the
church bells, eating buttered toast with cunty fingers.” I saw the
book in a flash.

Also 'cunt' is not THAT temporary a word – it's been around for 500+ years according to an interesting aside in Anthony Burgess's otherwise boring novel, The Doctor is Sick.

Using a highly scientific method I concluded that in the UK it's used in reference to men about 90s% of the time and in the US in reference to women about 90% of the time. What do other experts think?

It appears in Chaucer! </USE OTHER FACTS PLEASE>

It's in the Canterbury Tales so make that 700+

a + f

in other words, Matt DC otm

oh no is that book boring? i just bought it!

d'oh

Hey guys I was just going to mention Chaucer too FYI

Best bit of A-Level English Lit amirite?

When I read Chaucer the footnote said it meant 'pudenda,' which I had to look up.

More than one pudendum!

OK, well I guess I shouldn't say that "none of these options work for me" but more like more than one of these options work for me and just picking one wouldn't really give a fair representation of what I think of the word. I could go 1, 2, and 4 (except the British part kinda excludes me). Having said all of that, "I am a descriptive linguist; prepare for me to bore you to death." seems like a very appropriate option. I'll shut up now.

fwiw I have nothing against descriptive linguistics, just this one particular descriptive linguist I know who has a degree in it and 'doesn't believe in jobs' so consequently I run into him all the time around town and he talks my fucking ass off.

When I'm really mad at a woman it's just the ticket. Not to her face, of course. The K sound is like a stab. Why FUCK is so good.

honestly nobody in America uses this word... I mean it is really REALLY rare

otoh I recall the girl in college who turned a bright apopleptic purple whenever the word "pussy" was used so yeah offensiveness is totally contextual and what offends some people is gonna seem totally innocuous to others, depending upon the context and usage

http://www.drudge.com/news/120375/why-ok-call-someone-dick-but

On that subject, I don't understand why "cunt" has so much more power than "dick". But it's definitely true. I don't think I've ever said it in anger, because I'm pretty sure it would be my last words.

A few years ago my car broke down, and I told one of my young sons that he could without punishment say one cuss word -- and only one -- in response to the unexpected car problem. My mother and one of the boys' friends, a devout Mormon, were in the car with us at the time.

So he dropped the C bomb. He told me later that since he only got one, he wanted to make it count.

#82 | Posted by rcade at 2009-04-27 10:40 AM | Reply | Flag:

English using it = ok whatever
Americans using it = stop trying to pretend you are Henry Miller and/or English

or, you know, a cunt

I do use it sometimes,for the same reasons Beth does, and yeah damn does it ever do the trick. It sounds even more brutish bcz I can't really make the 't' sound, just a glottal stop.

Probably misogynist but I'm Glaswegian so use it near enough every time I speak to my friends. It can be used as a light insult - like saying "you daft cunt" if someone does something stupid like spill a drink or knock something over - I also use it as in insult - like saying "this guy I work with is a right cunt" - and I also use it as a placeholder when referring to an individual whose identity I either can't remember, or whose identity isn't pertinent to the anecdote or piece of information I'm relaying - as in saying "some cunt, I think it might have been ed or bill, told me it was your birthday on Saturday" or "some cunt said that it would rain this afternoon".

x-post ^^ Me too. On the rare occasion that I use it it's when I'm ridiculously angry at someone and want to make it known. Thankfully that doesn't happen very often.

requesting some dude to update username

in my experience when UK males really want to break out the I-hate-that-woman they say "cow" not "cunt," a cunt is like the guy you have beers with who says dumb shit i.e. me

oh of course, there's also "making a cunt of it" which is to make a mess of something, "getting cunted" to get inebriated (this isn't so common, think i've heard english people say it occasionally) and the very unfortunate but often used term for someone being badly beaten "getting your cunt kicked in".

is Furry offensive?

I'm English and voting accordingly but the thing about never using this around yr mum is definitely true. HOWEVER, the other day my mum was telling me how the effectively exhusband of one of her colleagues had written "CUNT" in weedkiller on her lawn as she was trying to sell her house and that will probably be the only time I hear her use that word. Calling a hateful woman a cock gets them the right sort of offended and has a peculiar gravitas.

oh, almost forgot, no thread on the subject would be complete without:

http://www.limmy.com/playthings/xylophone/

fwiw I voted for the obvious one but I did so with a heavy heart because I have been known to also use "the dudes" on a fairly regular basis

Didn't there used to be a Gropecunt Lane in london?

I guess I alternate between breasts (serious), boobs (I'm embarrassed and don't know what to call them), and tits (very jokey). But I'm not really happy with any of the terms.

It's not the word, it's the way it's used. Who cares? It's 2009! (and yes misogyny still sucks).

As a general rule, any use of animal or wound terms to describe female genitalia is pretty dodgy. Much of misogyny is as ingrained as what we call 'institutional' racism with the added funtime of half the victims of the language not realising it. Where that leaves us vis a vis the popular Britishes term 'growler', I do not know.

I thought "growler" was an Australian term?

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=growler

Seems to have taken off in the UK from Bo Selecta, nothing Aussie indicated on the first page.

Best non-sexist term for female genitalia comes from the otherwise AAARGH sexual politics zone of Jamaica: 'pum-pum'

Never heard of growler.

Oh wait, I was thinking that was in the context of das boobies. Stupid me.

Best use of a breast euphemism - nursing friend who got annoyed with hubby's continued reliance on breastfeeding as chillax maneuver for grizzling infants: 'As if all problems can be solved by Mama's ta-tas!'

"Baps" has always amused me greatly - very britisher. Kind of Viz mag.

i have a four letter word even stronger than c*nt, and that word is C-A-R-E

I'm so used to the way Brits seem to use the word "cunt" that it doesn't strike me as particularly offensive. Beth is right that it seems to gain special traction merely from the hard "c" sound. I honestly don't recall a time when I ever called a woman that. "bitch" is so much more common in America.

A lady friend of mine said "gash" the other day and my drink pretty much went up my nose.

i can't remember where i heard it but 'snizzpod' always made me chuckle. and 'polly'

SNIZZPOD?!

From wiki

"In 1996 there was controversy when AOL's obscenity filter (among others) refused to accept the name of the town due to its inclusion of the substring cunt, which the filter rejected as obscene. Some online forums such as Ultimate Guitar forums (which has recently been resolved) display the name as S****horpe, while Fark.com would display it as Scoonthorpe. This situation is known in the computing world as the Scunthorpe problem and is still an issue to Scunthorpe based internet users."

^This is the key reason for using the word 'twunt' in e-mail or possible NSFW situations.

Stwunthorpe is a bit of a mouthful though

bam

Who you calling a bam? Ya fuckin' ride!

hehehe oh ye glasgees

Scoonthorpe

Hats off to whoever came up with this cheery, problem-free alternative

that lenin's tomb guy is a cunt. google it, cunt.

which coont came up that fuckr?

It was these punk rockers with their spitting and their antics... don’t they realise that love makes the world go roond?

presumably lenin's tomb guy does not actually lie about Cable tho

xpost

Oh it really really duz, like in scoonthrfuckorpe where I cum from...

Scoonthorpe

Hats off to whoever came up with this cheery, problem-free alternative

― leave true black metal to those who don't deserve to listen to it (DJ Mencap), Thursday, 4 June 2009 10:27 (1 hour ago)

lolol

has anyone else heard "axe wound" or is that a sheffield thing?

oh baby i'm thinkin' about yer axe wound

oh the halcyon days of finding rathergood.com funny

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

OH CUNT YES

fuck you limey.

^^^lol

fuck you limey.

― ian, Monday, June 15, 2009 1:55 AM (9 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

fuck you, you limey... cunt?

<3

totes

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/mediamonkeyblog/audio/2010/apr/01/nicky-campbell-fox-hunting

I don't mind hearing it now and then, but when your best friends girlfriends every 5th word was cunt, it kinda grates.
She's get mildly drunk and call everyone a fucking cunt, not even christmas dinner with his family could stop her.

She even called his uncle (who is a priest) a soft cock in front of many guests! Not many stayed after that.

Yeah stop ruining pussy for everyone ;_;

― chk chk BOOM! (Trayce), Wednesday, 3 June 2009 03:22 (9 months ago) Bookmark

this is an awesome thread

I've known people who have used the Derek & Clive "You stupid c***..." sketch as their ringtone.

been using this word so much lately, think it's sublimated into my quotidian

sorry, my cuntidian

Jeremy Kyle Show swear word broadcast because producers had not 'understood' guest's Scottish accent

The thing about this story is I can't think of a Scottish accent where this particular word would be unintelligible.

producers of the local news in nw england have had the same issue

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znYJXIw2UKw

"Fackin hell bit of sun and you've put the roof down you cunt!"

Said by man outside pub to his friend the other day as I passed by. I spent the next 10 mins wondering if the man felt it was the very act of putting his roof down so eagerly that was intrinsically cuntish or that he was just using this as an excuse to work in a more general accusation of cuntery towards his friend who perhaps he actually harbours a significant degree of resentment towards for other reasons.

I believe the subscript relates to ".. which is a cuntish thing to do" rather than " which is only to be expected from you as you are a cunt in general"

No it relates to cunt being a word used without a major implication