The C-word is old
First off, this really is an old word. Actually *ancient* in all likelihood. Wikipedia cites this rather blunt advice given in the Proverbs of Hendyng (pre 1325):
"Ȝeue þi cunte to cunnig and craue affetir wedding"
(Give your c--t wisely and make (your) demands after the wedding)
The Oxford English Dictionary cites its first usage around 1230 in the context of "Gropecunt Lane", but it's much older than that. It's likely to come from the Proto-Germanic kuntō (We are talking about 2500 years ago). When people say "don't mind my French" in fact they should be saying "don't mind my Anglo-Saxon": most swear words in English are actually from Old English, and are therefore Germanic. In our Germanic neighbour, Dutch, we still have the related word "kond" which is not a swear word and simply means "bottom". This reflects a fascinating confusion akin to the British English and American English usages of "fanny".
The C-Word has survived the Viking raids, the Norman Invasion, and "polite" Victorian society. Chaucer used it quite happily - anatomical words didn't seem to have the same stigma back then, but by Shakespeare's time it was becoming "obscene". It's not a word taught at schools, and until recently wasn't hardly ever seen in print - its eradication from mainstream script shows that it could only have survived because people were still using in speech, sufficiently frequently, that it did not die out. The word has literally been passed from mouth to mouth down the centuries.
It even actually disappeared from all main stream English dictionaries from 1795 to 1961. Think about it: the C-word survived notwithstanding this fact. That's actually amazing.
Is it offensive or should it be reclaimed?
Well Germaine Greer thinks it's offensive: she said "It's one of the few remaining words in English with a genuine power to shock". Likewise the Guardian in 2005 said it was the "most offensive word to the majority" and the Dictionary of Invective in 1991 said it was "the most heavily tabooed word of all English words."
The flip side are the now well rehearsed feminist arguments, also put forward by the likes of Greer*, that why should the "most offensive word in the English language" refer to the female genitalia? Who has made it this way? Men. Therefore to disempower the word it should be used as much as possible. A "dick" is a fool; a c--t by contrast is pretty much the most offensive insult to throw at someone. Let's take this power away from it.
We had a group of lesbian friends staying with us in Amsterdam at New Year 1998: I suggested this argument to them and still remember posh friend Henrietta shrieking and covering her ears. By the end of the long weekend we'd used the word so many times (on purpose and jokingly) it *had* in fact ceased to have the same power. Critically, though, this observation applied amongst us and in this limited societal context.
I've heard people say the very <sound> of the word is offensive. It's apparently harsh and nasty. As I touched on earlier, I'm not trying to show I'm all grown up and above petit-bourgeois norms by defending the C-word... but I do disagree with that contention. Is "cat" or "cut" an offensive sounding word? No, of course not. There is absolutely no such thing as an offensive sounding word: we as a society have given this word a special meaning unconnected to the actual word itself.
Context and intent are everything
Many words can be used offensively. If you use the right spiteful, aggressive tone you can call me an "idiot" in such a way that it will hurt far more than if, say, one of my pals jokingly calls me a "daft c--t" with a laugh and a smile on their face.
My former boss is a quite frum Orthodox Jew. A typical conversation in the office might have gone like this: "Oh Jeremy, sorry I forgot to send that email out you asked me to" .... "That's okay, Peter, you complete c--t". The fact we were close friends and the wonderful inappropriateness of his using the word (his wife did it too) just turned the whole thing on its head. We would write it "komplete kunt" to make it clear, I suppose, that this was our usage of the word and the not the more general one. We had actually managed to make the C-word (or K-word!) a term of affection and humour between us. Language is very much capable of this - but this is about a strictly specific and limited context: if we had gone around calling the trainees or the senior partner a "c--t" we'd have, quite rightly, been in serious trouble.
This understanding of and sensitivity to context is, I would argue, wholly lacking from the type of thing I set out below. Laurie Penny (@pennyred), who is relatively well known on Twitter and blogs/writes for the New Statesman, has frequently thrown the C-word out there "to the world". She once wrote a long blog on why it was such a great word and seems to use it to want to shock and draw attention to herself:
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| Note 31 people felt fit to retweet this "fascinating/profound" thought.. |
You may be aware that she called a writer/activist of the Third Estate group a c--t in January of this year (please click for a short explanation of the story) and this tweet followed on from it. This was in front of around 100 people, of whom the target apparently knew around a quarter and had to work with the rest. How would I have felt if my Mutti had been in the audience? How would I have felt if *I* had been in the audience? I'm not exactly a person of delicate Victorian language sensibilities - I would not otherwise be writing on this subject matter - but I'd just find that naive, coarse, unnecessary and in that context it would lower the speaker in my eyes. I can't see how the standard feminist "disempowering argument" was PennyRed's intention: her tweet suggests she uses it very much to offend: it is about "baring her teeth". I also find it odd she thinks men find the word offensive: my own life experience is that men are likely to use it far more often, and women are more likely to be offended by the C-word.
In any case, this blog is not intended as an attack on Penny Red. She is obviously bright and writes some very good stuff; however this behaviour makes me think that she does have some amount of growing up to do. She is of course not the only person who uses the C-word for effect: as we've identified: if nothing else, it can evoke strong reactions. The above tweet and the story I mentioned are simply good illustrations of the point from someone who is "not shy" of the word.
The C-word on Twitter
In real life I'm very relaxed about using the C-word with certain friends. They all know me well and they know that my intent is not to offend them. I choose never use it as a term of abuse, because I think personally the misogynist undertones are pretty clear. On Twitter, which is by definition much more public, I deliberately do not ever use it in general tweets: I do use it every now and then, with a humorous intent, in an @message to a few people (eg @obotheclown or @hyperbolicgoat) because I'm pretty sure mutual followers of ours would not be offended given these guys' own style of "sweary" tweeting.
On a macro level I very much see the merits of the feminist "Lady Love Your C--t" argument put forward by Greer - but I am not going to change the world on a micro level by standing up in front of 100 people I did not know and using it as an insult.
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| Cover your ears, Hyacinth! |
You are of course perfectly entitled to use whatever language you like and we are all aware that people may well follow or unfollow us on Twitter on that basis. I don't avoid c--t to keep followers, or from some "polite" or "prissy" Hyacinth Bucket view of language; I don't use it simply because I know a good proportion of people will find it offensive. To misquote a legal case on the Egg-Shell Rule from English common law: "you take your audience as you find them". Some of my followers couldn't care less, some might be mildly upset, a few would be very upset if I swore in this way. It doesn't make me feel big or clever to evoke the 2nd and 3rd reactions.
Back to the Graffiti
To summarise the C-word is not a bad word of itself - as in any use of language, what makes it powerful or offensive is the way we decide to view it: both individually and as a society. That changes over time and at the moment you hear the C-word more and more. If this keeps up, it will become less powerful. Huzzah to that... I guess? The word has certainly been around a long time and as a former student of history of language I have a certain inherent respect for it on that basis.
I follow lots of people on Twitter who use it frequently. Sometimes it is splendidly funny to hear someone you really don't expect coming out with it. However, there are plenty of people who won't find it funny and will be upset. I don't think randomly going round (intentionally or negligently) upsetting people is that great a thing. Isn't that just common sense and the rules of basic social interaction?
Back to the graffiti on the wall: you know what? Meh. I really couldn't care less if you'd written "Poo", "Faggot" or "Wibble Wibble" on that wall. You're not offending me. You have given me an idea to write about on my blog - but I'm not so sure that many of the older people walking round the woods with their dogs will be quite so relaxed. It's a pretty pathetic and unnecessary thing to do to want to upset or shock them, isn't it?
[Update: many thanks to @AAEmerson for for pointing me to a recent video in which the incredibly likeable and brilliant Greer has since modified her position again, and is now celebrating the C-word as having "power". She says she is glad the "normalisation" she called for has not happened. It's a great watch if you have 11 minutes spare and are interested!]
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