Um, no. Swat and hot (and twat) rhyme, fraught rhymes with thought and bought.
I have a female friend who thinks the single most offensive word anyone could utter is pussy. Anytime anyone speaks it, she lets them know her feelings on it, and that she much prefers ‘cunt’. In my experience, she doesn’t speak for all women. She uses cunt freely.
I will admit, a woman using cunt during the dirtytalking is extremely erotic, in my opinion. Something about the taboo nature of it, to be used in a pleading “now stick it in my cunt, ooooohhhh…” manner is extremely hot.
Wow. Ireland may shock you then. I think I heard it about at least 10 times today, once by my uber-boss.
Context is everything here. If in an argument I called a woman a stupid cunt it would be seriously offensive but in other contexts it’s just a strong swear word.
I called a server a cunt today IIRC it was, “Cunt of a thing won’t boot no matter what I cunting try”. When somebody else fixed it they called me a silly cunt for not fixing it myself. Then we went out for a fag(smoke).
You know, I can only recall hearing it in one movie (The Silence of the Lambs) – and I remember it being extremely jarring (as I think it was intended to be).
You have to be careful when making definitive statements about pronunciation. For me, *swat *and *twat *rhyme but *hot *rhymes with fraught, thought, and bought.
Yeah, I agree with this. A bunch of women freak about the word, so most me don’t use it. But if you are with just men or a woman who you know doesn’t take offense to it, it’s no big deal. Some people here have implied that it’s on the level with the N word, which is an overstatement in my opinion.
In my favorite bar, they keep a list of barred people, not allowed to ever come back. Almost all of them were booted for unacceptably bad physical behavior. One man and his girlfriend, though, crossed the line when they called the cook and the lady bartender cunts. These aren’t shy, prudish women. The cook playfully calls herself the Kitchen Bitch.
Around here, a man cannot call a woman a cunt and expect to ever be her friend again.
Come to think of it, there is no word to call a man that’s as toxic as that.
I am a big fan of the word (American here)…it seems to me like its about the only word that can actually elicit a response and shock someone, like a good curse should. We are so desensitized to all the other major “swear words” that we (and by that I mean me and most people I have met) barely even notice them. That one will get a reaction though, and when used by me is used exactly for that reason.
Heh, interesting to see this here, I just saw a brohuahua on another message board I frequent where one member called another member’s girlfriend a cunt. Drama ensured.
Personally, in terms of most insulting words in America, I’d probably put the list at 1) nigger, 2) cunt and 3) faggot.
Though I suppose the argument could be made for other racist terms (chink, kike, spick, etc) especially when aimed at someone of that ethinicity; but I don’t think I’ve ever heard those applied to someone not of that race (whereas “nigger” gets thrown around all the time, even commonly against non-blacks).
Yeah, that can get you Brits/Kiwis/Aussies into trouble. I’ve gotten into more arguments with Brits who cry that we Americans “have no sense of humor,” because we can’t read their deadpan sarcasm, which has ZERO telltales. Here’s a hint: you need to let people in on the joke at some point—especially when deadpanning to people you barely know. You’re all not Andy Kaufman. (And come to think of it, Andy got his ass kicked regularly for this sort of thing.)
Oh, and as to the OP–that word is definitely the Mother of all Bombs. I’ve NEVER heard it used in ordinary conversation–only on things like Sex & the City and Howard Stern.
I did not know the word until I was in high school. It was in a Stephen King novel I was reading. I don’t remember how I knew what it meant.
Now, it is one of my favorite words, not as an epithet, but as a synonym for vulva and vagina. Back when I started college my husband took over most of housekeeping, yet he would ask me where things were even if he were the last one to use it, even if he was the only one who ever handled it. I decided that it must be that he thought I was hiding them. So, I started answering “It’s in my cunt.” I answered this no matter the dimension of the object. Eventually, I had my own theme song, “The Whole World is in My Cunt.”
Almost the same impact to my ears is cooze. Less of a punch or jab per se, but more of a slimy feel to it. Tim O’Brien used it in The Things They Carried, having one character call a woman a “dumb cooze.” Jumped right off the page at me.
British guy in Atlanta and contrary to your statement, I cannot think of a worse swear word in England and so I would vehemently disagree with yur statement that it is “very minor”. Even then, though, I would agree that it is viewed as much worse in the US. I guess we Brits are more used to bad language.
There are other words that are viewed more seriously here: nigger (no doubt because of past racist roots in America), damn (never even thought of that as profanity until I moved to the deep south), ass, asshole.
And there are others that are less serious in America: piss (as in pissed) - it seems strange to me that network TV will bleep out ass(hole) yet allow pissed. And any TV show with British characters must include “bloody” to show that they are British. It’s a pretty mild word in Britain, but a non-swear word in the US.