As we were saying, "son-of-a-bitch" and "asshole" offer piquant alternatives for dissing the (male) jerks in your life. But what do you call the females of the species? There's "bitch," of course (or bee-yotch, if you want to be coy/trendy/censor-dodging), but for pure malevolence and shock value, you just can't beat the C-word.
Sarah Et Cetera takes it from here:
Men spend a lot of time insulting one another by belittling their pensises, and lobbing genital-based insults at one another. But when a man calls a woman a cunt? Oh, he’s in big trouble. Equality, though, involves not a little sexual harassment.
And a little further down (oh, behave):
What’s most interesting is that this word has increased in vulgarity and obscenity ranking over the years, opposite the paths most words follow. It’s known as vulgar since the 15th century, but has only been considered obscene since the 17th.
I've become inured to almost every English-language expletive, but I admit that cunt still shocks and disturbs me. You'd think it would be a more amiable word: it has that guaranteed-for-a-laugh K sound and it sort of resembles cute. But while son-of-a-bitch and asshole can be uttered with near-affection--and "Son-of-a-bitch!" often serves as an expression of mere surprise--cunt carries overtones of misogynistic rage. (Unless I've missed some new slang trend. After all, some girls and women now use ho as a friendly greeting, BFF to BFF.)
Of course, there's also the strictly anatomical, non-accusatory cunt, which is what Sarah Et Cetera is mostly interested in: "an earthy, fast way to refer to a vagina that doesn’t involve a lot of rococo language about petals around a miracle."
Hey, almost anything's better than va-jay-jay.*
(Hat tip: Editrix.)
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* Lately, I've been partial to chocha.
Yeah, my friends do use some insults as terms of endearment (o.k., I play back sometimes, but I don't care for it). However, the C-word is still off limits -- at least as far as I can figure.
Personally, I think it's a rather nifty word, but maybe I've watched the Vagina Monologues too many times. That, and I have a linguistic appreciation for obscenities.
Posted by: Meg from All About Appearances | July 01, 2008 at 02:16 PM
I get the impression that "cunt" is less hostile in British English, but I'd have to check with Lynne at separated by a common language to be sure. Certainly it's highly obscene in my idiolect.
Posted by: Erin | July 01, 2008 at 03:34 PM
Well, it's apparently not off-limits to the Republican presidential candidate; here's a great piece on the media's inability to cover http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFCl3EUMHSc&feature=related.
"Petals around a miracle" - now that's a hoot.
Posted by: Jessica | July 01, 2008 at 04:03 PM
Uh, that's "cover the incident." Sorry!
Posted by: Jessica | July 01, 2008 at 04:04 PM
@Jessica: Love the YouTube clip. No cunt-try for old men, indeed!
Posted by: Nancy | July 01, 2008 at 06:02 PM
While cunt is still obscene in BrE, it's certainly true that it's used more freely here. I think a key difference is that it's used of men. So, a man might call another man that he dislikes 'a stupid cunt'. It would sound worse if it were about a woman, and the word is used far less by women than by men.
Posted by: lynneguist | July 01, 2008 at 06:06 PM
There's a local construction crane company in my area named after the family that owns it: Mooncotch. I think mooncotch sounds like a terrific alternative to chocha.
Posted by: Orange | July 01, 2008 at 06:18 PM
@Lynneguist: Thanks for the UK perspective! Hard to imagine the converse: do women ever call each other "dicks"?
@Orange: Mooncotch is excellent! A little woo-woo, blessings-to-Gaia, let's-taste-our-menstrual-blood, but still ... a fabulous word.
Posted by: Nancy | July 01, 2008 at 07:20 PM
In my family, it's always been your "cootch". Not too sweet, not too vulgar, just right.
The women's festival I attend in summers has a little general store selling everything from ice cream bars to tarps is called the Cuntry Store. Which I have to say, I love. My experience is that between lesbians, cunt can be used as a word that is affectionate, empowering and political. But coming from a man, I would take great insult. Mostly based on the fact that my "petals around a miracle" where being used as a degrading term. I personally would call men and women "dick" equally. Which I realize is pretty sexist of me!
Posted by: Tay | July 02, 2008 at 09:37 AM
"Chocha" is brand-new to me. Thanks for that! This has been a really fun ongoing discussion.
Posted by: Sarah, etc. | July 02, 2008 at 09:42 AM
I've never heard a woman called that in the UK. I've seen it used that way on US T.V. but it is clearly meant in a different sense to what we mean when used toward a man and so is actually just meaningless vulgarity.
If anything, when I have seen it used on US T.V. it seems slightly pathetic, as though said for effect in preference to the meaning, and tends to cast the accuser as the villain, regardless of the context.
Posted by: Andrew | July 03, 2008 at 03:23 PM
@Andrew: I can't remember ever hearing it on U.S. TV. In fact, I'd have said it was the last taboo. Where did you hear it? (I'm guessing Deadwood, of which I've seen only about 12 minutes. I heard a lot of cussing, but no "cunt.")
Posted by: Nancy | July 03, 2008 at 04:34 PM
I have seen it a few times, but the one that springs to mind is Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Posted by: Andrew | July 03, 2008 at 09:32 PM