What is it you can’t face…about the word CUNT.

Why it’s time to stop saying “See you Next Tuesday” and instead bring in ‘cunt’ from the cold

The thing I love most about the English language is that it is a colourful hodgepodge of just about every other language past and present.

It’s the mongrel, ‘Heinz 49 varieties’, impure bastard of linguistics.

A horror to learn, apparently, and given its constant fluidity, not a language anyone will ever master or mistress…case in point.

And yet this is also its undeniable ugly-beauty — that it is alive.

That it constantly shifts and changes.

That it keeps us guessing, on our toes, linguistically agile.

Which brings me to the word CUNT.

A great word to arrive at. A powerful word.

But, sadly still a taboo word that remains the unholy grail of what constitutes polite language.

So much else has steadily crept into what is acceptable.

Fuck. Shit. Bitch. Bastard. Cock. Etc…

But…cunt?

No.

Well, ok, yes to some degree.

The word has steadily crept into film where the ratings system has acted as a signal to folk entering the dark recesses of a cinema that if it the film has that M or M15+ rating there might be a solid dose of cunt thrown your way.

With streaming services becoming the norm, cunt has also slipped into more common usage on TV because, let’s face it, IT IS IN COMMON USAGE for chunks of the community who do not flinch at its utterance but rather enjoy the way it bounces off the tongue…so to speak.

FFS, Reverend Mothers even drop it on the odd occasion.

I’ve been delighting in the word for many years, luckily blessed by a group of mates who threw it around like, well, any old cunt.

It even became a term of endearment — “How are you cunty” was something I was oft greeted with, and still am on occasion, by any number of my besties.

It’s not like it’s a new word. The master ‘count’ of all things English language William Shakespeare himself inserted it (ah the puns, always the puns) into parts of his own extensive catalogue of work.

And Etymology online offers a solid rundown on the origins of the delicious term:

cunt (n.)

“female intercrural foramen,” or, as some 18c. writers refer to it, “the monosyllable,” Middle English cunte “female genitalia,” by early 14c. (in Hendyng’s “Proverbs” — ʒeve þi cunte to cunni[n]g, And crave affetir wedding), akin to Old Norse kunta, Old Frisian, Middle Dutch, and Middle Low German kunte, from Proto-Germanic *kunton, which is of uncertain origin. Some suggest a link with Latin cuneus “wedge” (which is of unknown origin), others to PIE root *geu- “hollow place,” still others to PIE root *gwen- “woman.”

The form is similar to Latin cunnus “female pudenda” (also, vulgarly, “a woman”), which is likewise of disputed origin, perhaps literally “gash, slit” (from PIE *sker- “to cut”) or “sheath” (Watkins, from PIE *(s)keu- “to conceal, hide”). De Vaan rejects this, however, and traces it to “a root *kut-meaning ‘bag’, ‘scrotum’, and metaphorically also ‘female pudenda,’ “ source also of Greek kysthos “vagina; buttocks; pouch, small bag” (but Beekes suspects this is a Pre-Greek word), Lithuanian kutys “(money) bag,” Old High German hodo “testicles.”

Hec vulva: a cunt. Hic cunnus: idem est. [from Londesborough Illustrated Nominale, c. 1500, in “Anglo-Saxon and Old English Vocabularies,” eds. Wright and Wülcker, vol. 1, 1884]

First known reference in English apparently is in a compound, Oxford street name Gropecuntlanecited from c. 1230 (and attested through late 14c.) in “Place-Names of Oxfordshire” (Gelling & Stenton, 1953), presumably a haunt of prostitutes. Used in medical writing c. 1400, but avoided in public speech since 15c.; considered obscene since 17c.

in Middle English also conte, counte, and sometimes queinte, queynte (for this, see Q). Chaucer used quaint and queynte in “Canterbury Tales” (late 14c.), and Andrew Marvell might be punning on quaint in “To His Coy Mistress” (1650).

“What eyleth yow to grucche thus and grone? Is it for ye wolde haue my queynte allone?” [Wife of Bath’s Tale]

Under “MONOSYLLABLE” Farmer lists 552 synonyms from English slang and literature before launching into another 5 pages of them in French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese. [A sampling: Botany Bay, chum, coffee-shop, cookie, End of the Sentimental Journey, fancy bit, Fumbler’s Hall, funniment, goatmilker, heaven, hell, Itching Jenny, jelly-bag, Low Countries, nature’s tufted treasure, penwiper, prick-skinner, seminary, tickle-toby, undeniable, wonderful lamp, and aphrodisaical tennis court, and, in a separate listing, Naggie. Dutch cognate de kont means “a bottom, an arse,” but Dutch also has attractive poetic slang ways of expressing this part, such as liefdesgrot, literally “cave of love,” and vleesroos “rose of flesh.”

Alternative form cunny is attested from c. 1720 but is certainly much earlier and forced a change in the pronunciation of coney (q.v.), but it was good for a pun while coney was still the common word for “rabbit”: “A pox upon your Christian cockatrices! They cry, like poulterers’ wives, ‘No money, no coney.’ “ [Philip Massinger: “The Virgin-Martyr,” Act I, Scene 1, 1622]

Yet despite cunt’s seemingly fine historical pedigree, there remains a solid barrier in place, erected from the ‘language righteous’ who still feel cunt must stay in the naughty corner.

We saw this recently in the case of the ABC and Tom Ballard’s Tonightly Show which received complaints about the use of the word in a sketch and had ex-Chairman David Milne in a dither when the complaints were overturned because he felt Ballard went to well.

Both are out of a job now. Now that’s a cunt, aint it?

I’ve also recently been in a role as a Community Moderator for a major media organisation where it was the one word that, unless uttered ATL (above the line) or contextualised BTL (below the line) as part of an actual quote, it had to be removed.

Let me be clear — I totally comprehend the defence against cunt being used more widely by some who see it as derogatory and sexist, particularly given the fact the female sexual organ it can refer to is undeserving of such and, rather, a beauty to behold.

Fair call.

But just as words such as ‘wog’ and ‘faggot’ and ‘nigga’ were taken back by the communities they were used against and worn proudly as a sign of defiance, surely those who have similar political reasons for suppressing cunts can turn the word back against their linguistic oppressors and remove the bitter power the word has come to hold?

I predict that it won’t be long before cunts are everywhere.

I see a not-too-distant society where cunt is thrown around like any other word and is no longer meted out as a means of oppression but rather another four-letter word of the universal lexicon.

I look forward to a time when we no longer have to dance around cunts but instead we can let em rip without fear of censorship, derision or judgement.

So, here’s to cunts on every corner.

To a population who don’t fear cunts but instead revel in them.

To a world full of cunts.

To cunts coming in from the cold and being embraced by us all.

Viva La CUNT!