# Knut in Italian

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/knut-in-italian/445972>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [April 19, 2008, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/knut-in-italian/445972 "2008-04-19T03:27:23Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\
**Post date:** [April 19, 2008, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/knut-in-italian/445972/1 "2008-04-19T03:27:23Z")

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Let’s go back in time a couple of decades. High school German class. There was an Italian foreign exchange student to snickered whenever the name Knut (the K is pronounced, of course) was said. He said it sounds like a rude Italian word, but he never said what it was.

Any ideas?

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**Author:** ![Bambi\_Hassenpfeffer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Bambi\_Hassenpfeffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bambi_Hassenpfeffer)\
**Post date:** [April 19, 2008, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/knut-in-italian/445972/2 "2008-04-19T04:58:50Z")

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Educated guess based on a Spanish cognate: _coño_ is from Latin _cunnus_.

Given the series of sound changes between the various Romance languages, I’d expect _cunnus_ to come into Italian either as _cunno_ or maybe _cunnu_.

Knut, with the T dropped or spoken softly could be stretched into _cunnu_ without breaking.

ETA: I Googled and found [this Wikipedia article](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_profanity#In_the_Romance_languages_3) which says that _cunnu_, from _cunnus_, exists in Sardinian, which is one of many Italian languages.