Cunt

Cunt is an English term that refers to the human female genitals; it is widely considered to be the most offensive word in the English language, outstripping even the venerable catch-all offender "fuck". In modern English, the word vagina is considered to be more appropriate, though strictly speaking this word only refers to a specific part of the female genitalia, as does vulva.

Usage

"Cunt" is also used as a term of abuse: in American English, it implies that the named person is extremely nasty and unpleasant in a way that bitch does not. It is generally considered the most offensive description one can attribute to a person. In British English it is mainly directed at men, and is considered an insulting swear-word, implying that the named person is extremely obnoxious and malicious. The word is generally considered to be more offensive than cock, prick, and other vulgar words referring to the penis.

Like many vulgar words, cunt owes some of its "popularity" in that usage to its phonetic characteristics. Its monosyllabic nature, combined with the hard K sound at the beginning and the sharp T at the end make it well-suited for use as an epithet or interjection.

The word is generally more offensive in the United States than it is in Commonwealth countries, where cunt can even be used as a jovial term of endearment (e.g. “he's a good cunt”). This usage is limited, however, and is not considered polite.

With the growing acceptance of the word fuck in print and broadcast media, cunt is sometimes described as the last genuinely unprintable and unsayable sexual word in mainstream media; this is less true in the UK, where in recent years it has received rare use in newspapers and even on radio and television, while remaining largely taboo. In January 2005, the BBC faced controversy after it broadcast Jerry Springer - The Opera on British television. The performance included the phrase "cunting, cunting, cunting, cunting cunt" (a description of the Devil). This usage — practically unknown in the United States — reflects the word's status as the "next" taboo expletive after the increasingly-tolerated fuck; it is increasingly being used as a direct substitute for the f-word, taking on analogous forms and being used in the same syntactical manner, despite the fact that it is — when used literally — a noun rather than a verb.

A derivative adjective "cuntish" is very common in Hiberno-English. It means frustrating or awkward.

Feminist viewpoints

A tiny number of feminists have sought to reclaim cunt as an acceptable word for the female genitalia. They claim that the lack of any comparable term for the male genitals demonstrates a profound cultural contempt, not only for females, but for femininity itself. Defenders of the word point out that terms for male genitals are used in an equivalent insulting way, though the degree of equivalence differs between English speaking cultures (examples include "you prick"; "you dick-head"; "utter balls" [British]; "bollocks" [British]; etc). These words are directly comparable to the hateful intent of cunt however. Many women prefer the somewhat more acceptable and contextually "affectionate" term pussy.

History

Cunt is an old Germanic word, and appeared as cunte in Middle English and kunta in Old Norse. It has cognates in most Germanic languages, such as the Swedish and Norwegian kunta†, Frisian kunte, and Dutch kut (while kont in Dutch means bum, buttocks, gender-neutral, but generally derogatory; 'stomme kont' means 'dumb arse'). Its original derivation is an Old Germanic stem kunton. It arose by Grimm's law operating on the Indo-European root gen/gon = "create, become" seen in gonads, genital, gamete, genetics, gene, or the Indo-European root g^wneH₂/guneH₂ = "woman" seen in gynaecology. Relationships to similar-sounding words such as the Latin cunnus (vulva), French con, and Spanish coño have not been conclusively demonstrated. Other Latin words related to cunnus: cuneatus, wedge-shaped; cuneo v. fasten with a wedge; (figurative) to wedge in, squeeze in, leading to English words like cuneiform and cunnilingus.

It is worth quoting a scholarly reference: Eric Partridge, Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, New York: Greenwich House, Distributed by Crown Publishers, Inc. MCMLVIII, MCMLIX, MCMLXI, MCMLXVI, ISBN 0517414252, page 135.

cunt: ME cunte (occ counte), recorded once in OE: OFris kunte, akin to ON kunta, MLG-LG kunte, D kunte, MD conte; also to MF (and F) con, OF varr cun, cunne; like It conno, from L cunnus, s cun-. The presence of t in the Gmc has long puzzled the etymologists: even Walther von Wartburg aligns the Gmc kunta, kunte, with the L cunnus only under the aegis of a question-mark; for cunnus, E & M adduce the syn Gr kusthos and the Per kun, the posterior, but they omit to cite the Hit kun, tail; for kusthos, Hofmann proposes an orig *kuzdhos, with extended r *kus- or *keus- and with true IE r *ku- or *keu-, to hide or conceal, and he adduces L cutis, skin which has s cut-, extension of r *cu-, *ku-, the skin being a coverer.

But is it not probable that the word is of common Medit stock: Eg offers qefen-t, vagina, vulva, akin to the n-lacking Eg ka-t, vagina, vulva, mother, women collectively. There are also several Sem congnates. The basic idea is prob 'essential femineity'.

Cunt has been in common use in English since at least the 13th century. It did not appear in any major dictionary of the English language from 1795 to 1961 (when it was included in Webster's Third New International Dictionary, with the comment "usu. considered obscene"). Its first appearance in the Oxford English Dictionary was in 1972, which cites the word as having been in use since 1230 in what was supposedly a current London street name of "Gropecuntelane".

The word appears several times in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (c1390), in bawdy contexts, but it does not appear to be thought of as obscene at this point, since it is used openly. A notable use is from the Miller's Tale "Pryvely he caught her by the queynte". The Wife of Bath also uses this term, "For certeyn, olde dotard, by your leave/You shall have queynte right enough at eve...What aileth you to grouche thus and groan?/Is it for ye would have my queynte alone?". In modernised versions of these passages the word "queynte" is usually translated simply as "cunt" [1] [2]. However, in Chaucer's usage there seems to be an overlap between the words "cunt" and "quaint" (possibly derived from from the Latin for 'known'). Quaint was probably pronounced in Middle English in much the same way as cunt. It is sometimes unclear whether the two words were thought of as distinct from one another. Elsewhere in Chaucer's work the word queynte seems to be used with meaning comparable to the modern "quaint" (charming, appealing).

By Shakespeare's day, the word seems to have been thought of as obscene. Although Shakespeare doesn't use the word explicitly (or with derogatory meaning) in his plays, he still has fun with it, using wordplay to sneak it in. In Act III, Scene 2, of Hamlet, as the castle's residents are settling in to watch the play-within-the-play, Hamlet asks Ophelia, "Lady, shall I lie in your lap?" Ophelia of course, replies, "No, my lord." Hamlet, feigning shock, says, "Do you think I meant country matters?" Then, to drive home the point that the accent is definitely on the first syllable of country, Shakespeare has Hamlet say, "That's a fair thought, to lie between maids' legs." Also see Twelfth Night (Act II, Scene V): "There be her very C's, her U's, and her T's: and thus makes she her great P's." A related scene occurs in Henry V, when Katherine is learning English, she is appalled at the "gros et impudique" English words "foot" and "gown", which her English teacher has mispronounced as "coun". Presumably Shakespeare intends to suggest that she has misheard "foot" as "foutre" (French, "fuck") and "coun" as "con" (French, "cunt").

By the 17th century a softer form of the word, cunny, came into use. This was probably a derived from a pun on "coney", meaning "rabbit", rather as "pussy" is connected to the same term for a cat. (Philip Massinger: "A pox upon your Christian cockatrices! They cry, like poulterers' wives, 'No money, no coney.'") Largely because of this usage, the word "coney" to refer to rabbits changed pronunciation (from short to long "o" cf. Coney Island), and has now almost completely disappeared from most dialects of English, much in the same way that the word "pussy" is now rarely used to refer to a cat.

Similar word-play has been used more recently. The British band The Sex Pistols recorded a song entitled '"Pretty Vacant", pronounced pretty vay-khunt.

Double act Peter Cook and Dudley Moore are often credited with having made the word more acceptable and accessible in the UK in the 20th Century through their Derek and Clive dialogues. In one sketch called "This Bloke Came Up To Me", the word is used 31 times in the course of two minutes.

Other meanings

The word forms part of some technical terms used in seafaring and construction industries.

A cunt splice is a form of knot used in rigging on ships.

The Ashley Book of Knots ISBN 0385040253, by Clifford W. Ashley, frequently uses the word cuntline to refer to the spiral groove between strands of twisted cordage. The author never defines the term, but assumes that he would be understood. The book was first printed in 1944 and would have been censored at that time if the word was considered offensive.

A Dictionary of Sea Terms, published in 1841, defines the cuntline differently, as "the space between the bilges of two casks, stowed side by side. Where one cask is set upon the cuntline between two others, they are stowed bilge and cuntline." The "bilge" of a barrel or cask is the widest point, so when stored together the two casks would produce a curved V-shaped gap.

The term cunt hair is used as a measurement in construction; an expansion of 'to move it a hair' or very small distance. A color may be added as an adjective to further define the degree of adjustment, such as RCH (red cunt hair as a coarse adjustment, a 'blonde' one would be a finer adjustment) [3]

Testimonials

"I'm a really big fan of cunt over words like pussy, and especially, vagina. The word has this great guttural sound that lets you get right into it. Pussy and vagina are really dirty words – you only ever hear really greasy men saying things like that. Cunt lets women be vulgar without being derogatory."

• Calista Flockhart, at a staging of The Vagina Monologues

"Those words ('bullshit', 'prick', 'pissed off', 'fuck you', and 'cunt') are now liberated from shame. They're in the dictionary now, finally. And the reason they came to the dictionary, finally, was through continual usage. Enough guys said to their wives 'YOU CUNT!' Pow! And that's why it's in the dictionary now: C-u-n-t."

• Lenny Bruce, discussing the 1961 Webster's Third New International Dictionary

Related Topics

• Sexual slang

External links

• The Etymology of Sexual Slang Terms
• Cunt: A Cultural History
• Love Is A Cunt: Contributor site discussing the likeness of love to a cunt

Further reading

• Inga Muscio, Cunt: A declaration of Independence [Seal Press]
• Barbara G. Walker, The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets [Harper & Row]
• Cunt, a 1999 novel by Stewart Home
• Lady Love Your Cunt, 1969 article by Germaine Greer and 1993 song by UK band SMASH

Uses in popular culture

• Cunt is also an album by Australian grindcore band Blood Duster.
• Just Like A Cunt and A Cunt Like You, two songs by UK power electronics pioneers Whitehouse
• Cunt, a term often used by US. riot grrl singer Jessicka / (Scarling.) (Jack Off Jill), Cumdumpster lyrics/ Sexless Demons And Scars. 1997 Risk Records C-c-c-c-cumdumpster C-c-c-c-cunt, C-c-c-call me clever, Is that still ok?
• I Might Be A Cunt, But I'm Not A Fucking Cunt, a 1998 song by Australian band TISM
• Cunt was a fictional documentary about a hipster/media wannabe, Nathan Barley, listed in TVGoHome, a spoof television listings website. It was later formed the basis of a Channel 4 sitcom, Nathan Barley.
• Cunt as a word is used by the Australian artist Kevin Bloody Wilson in several songs like; You can't say cunt in Canada and I had an absolute cunt of a day.
• Extensively used in The Exorcist.
• C.U.N.T. was the name of a student magazine at University College Dublin in 1978. It stood for Catholic University News and Times and the title was tongue-in-cheek.
• Anal Cunt is a United States grindcore band.
• The Cants are an Australian band.
• In Winnipeg, Manitoba,Canada, CUNT is a well known name for the vehicle driven by local celebrity 'Pimp Bob' who converted a 2003 Nissan Xterra into a moving metallic cut-out of the word 'CUNT'. It is also the term used to refer to a female at any events hosted by 'Pimp Bob'
• Cult writer Henry Miller frequently used the word in his autobiographical novels. Sometimes to refer to the genetalia of a woman and sometimes to refer to a woman.

See also

• Derek and Clive