An observation: At least two Brits have suggested that it is used in England as a disparaging term for a male.
I wonder if this isn’t possibly analogous to US teens using the terms “gay” and “faggot” to disparage another person or someone’s actions("That’s so gay), but usually not implying that the person is a homosexual.
Brits have always, in my experience, had a rather healthier attitude about sexual terms and such. Not that calling someone a cunt is acceptable in very many societies. Just that bathroom humor and sexual themes which might offend my mom in the US might not offend your mom in the UK.
Even Shakespeare makes puns on the word in Henry V when the French princess Katherine is getting a lesson in English from her lady in waiting:
Katherine: Comment appelez-vous le pied et la robe? [What do you call la pied and la robe?] Alice: Le foot,* madame, et le count.** Katherine: Le foot et le count! O Seigneur Dieu! ils sont les mots de son mauvais, corruptible, gros, et impudique, et non pour les dames de honneur d’user. Je ne voudrais prononcer ces mots devant les seigneurs de France pour tout le monde. Foh! le foot et le count! [Le foot and le count! O Lord, those are bad words, wicked, coarse, and immodest, and not proper for well-bred ladies to use. I wouldn’t utter those words before French gentlemen for all the world. Foh! le foot and le count!]
resembles the French word foutre, “fuck”
** pronounced koont in French
About a month ago I was watching porn on satellite “spice” TV. [blush] Now I don’t feel all porn is blatantly degrading to women, but this particular film gave off that vibe. What I thought was interesting was that the male dominant charcter that was telling this woman to do this or that, was incredulous that she talked about her “cunt.” He spoke at length about how even very sexually liberated women in the porn industry will not use it to describe their privates. Woman who were perfectly comfortably copulating on cam and referring to their unit as a “pussy” refrain from describing their own genitalia by that term. Of course he went on to tell her what a turn on it was and asked her to say it repeatedly, but go figure? So maybe the true test, at least for women, on either side of the ocean is how comfortable they feel using it in reference to their own parts.
Regarding “twat”: I remember being of junior high age and repeating a funny skit line from Monty Python to a friend at his house and in the presence of his parents. It had in it the word “Twit.” He was sure I had said the other in front of his parents and totally blew up on me later. I’m not even sure what a “twit” is. Synonimous with nitwit? numbskull? Twat is off-color, but neither I think carry much vulgarity here in the states.
PiscesPrincess, yes! thank you for reminding us that it is, after all, “a beautiful part of a woman’s body.” I couldn’t agree more. In the Shaktism and Tantrism of India, the yoni is worshiped as sacred.
There’s this interesting Proto-Germanic root *ku —
“Hypothetical base of a variety of conceivably related Germanic words meaning ‘a hollow space or place, an enclosing object…’.” (American Heritage Dictionary, 1st ed. [1969], p. 1524. The first edition of AHD had all kinds of interesting etymologies that were deleted from later editions.)
From *ku- we get cottage, cove, cubby, kobold, cobalt, goblin (entity dwelling underground), coop. And also…
There you have it. I love etymology. Oddly, another word derived from *ku- is cock, but not the kind of “cock” your salacious mind is thinking of: this is the haycock, another word for haystack. You know, the good old roll in the hay.
Perhaps because men so much more commonly insult each other in jest? At work, where my office has 5 men and 1 woman, us guys will just continually rail against each other. “Prick.” “Pussy.” “Cock-knocker.” “Ass-kebab.” “Spunk-jockey.” Eventually someone comes up with something new, and we sit around laughing for a few minutes, before getting back to work. Yeah, we’re real mature here. We get thoroughly vile in our ribbing, but it’s all in good humor. May I safely assume that women don’t typically do this, or if they do they’re much milder about it?
But yeah, “cunt” is the one word that’s still guaranteed to get a reaction 'round these parts. I don’t like it, either - it just sounds so gutteral. It’s probably just the fact that it’s not in wide circulation yet. “Fuck” used to be the ultimate in profanity, but now it seems not such a big deal. A movie can use it I think up to twice and still be PG-13, when one usage of it used to be enough to condemn a movie to R. As more words move into the mainstream (20 years ago, hearing “damn” on TV was a notable event, yet now people can say “asshole” routinely), I’m guessing that The C-Word will become commonplace, and something newly vile will take its place. Just a hunch, though.
Jeff
In London it’s often used as a term for a dupe or fool:
“…and I’m the cunt who ended up paying for it…”"
A term of abuse against other men:
“You Caaaant!”
A term for women by men who never get round to actually meeting them:
“there’s a lot of cunt about tonight”
In Aberdeen/Inverness and possibly other parts of Scotland there is a phrase used by men to other men:
“I’ll kick your cunt in”
You’re guess is as good as mine…
From the Sparks song ‘Hasta Manana’:
…You mentioned Kant and I was shocked
You know, where I come from, none of the girls have such foul tongues…
I’d agree with Jimm. Where I live it seems to be a very offensive word to women. Curiously, I have one female friend who doesn’t find it offensive at all, infact she uses it more than anyone else I know… so I often ask women I become friendly with how they feel about the word… in the vast majority of cases they don’t mind swearing except for that particular word…
I believe its first use was at the end of the Channel 4 series “Mosley” (1998) about Oswald Mosley. There was quite a discussion about it in the papers at the time.
IIRC “Trainspotting” (1996) was shown unedited on Channel 4 and it contains a fair amount of usage of the word.
We get thoroughly vile in our ribbing, but it’s all in good humor. May I safely assume that women don’t typically do this, or if they do they’re much milder about it?