Sherry Chandler

I stole this photo from Heraclitean Fire

because it’s Monday morning and I need a laugh, though it’s actually MSNBC with which I have the biggest quarrel in this regard. Correction: This is the Australian Broadcasting Company. Thanks Harry.

Harry, in turn, got it from monkeyc’s flickr set.

Harry has a generally interesting post about the different connotations of the word cunt in Great Britain.

…in British English: although it is still a coarse slang term for the female genitalia, it’s mainly used to insult men. Not out of any kind of profound sensitivity to gender relations, but just because that’s the way it is. And as a result, although it is regarded as a very offensive word—you can’t exactly use it on daytime telly—it doesn’t have the same kind of edge it clearly has in America. The parallel with ‘nigger’ is interesting: the word ‘cunt’ is taboo in Britain, but I don’t think anyone thinks of it as hate speech.

So maybe after all, Barack Obama has somewhere been called a cunt. But it wasn’t praise.

I actually have a certain respect for the word cunt. Like fuck, it’s one of those Anglo-Saxon monosyllables — well Middle English anyway — with roots perhaps back to Latin. Chaucer renders it queynte, which has a certain charm, and the word is certainly of more use to poets than female intercrural foramen. Cunt may come from the same root as queen and gyne or it may be related to coney or rabbit, which may explain the name of the Rampant Rabbit vibrator. I’ll let you look that one up for yourselves.

See also Poppysmatus’s translation of Catullus 41.

Here’s the entry for cunt at the Online Etymology Dictionary:

“female intercrural foramen,” or, as some 18c. writers refer to it, “the monosyllable,” M.E. cunte “female genitalia,” akin to O.N. kunta, from P.Gmc. *kunton, of uncertain origin. Some suggest a link with L. cuneus “wedge,” others to PIE base *geu- “hollow place,” still others to PIE *gwen-, root of queen and Gk. gyne “woman.” The form is similar to L. cunnus “female pudenda,” which is likewise of disputed origin, perhaps lit. “gash, slit,” from PIE *sker- “to cut,” or lit. “sheath,” from PIE *kut-no-, from base *(s)keu- “to conceal, hide.” First known reference in Eng. is said to be c.1230 Oxford or London street name Gropecuntlane, presumably a haunt of prostitutes. Avoided in public speech since 15c.; considered obscene since 17c. Du. cognate de kont means “a bottom, an arse.” Du. also has attractive poetic slang ways of expressing this part, such as liefdesgrot, lit. “cave of love,” and vleesroos “rose of flesh.” Alternate 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’ wive

Note: This is the entire entry but it looks truncated to me. A quick Google search turns up Tilley’s Dictionary of Proverbs. Part II which completes the rhyme thusly:

A pox upon your Christian cockatrices! They cry, like poulterers’ wives “No money, no coney.”

Ah, here’s the full entry at the Online Etymology Dictionary

A blogger named Callimachus at Done With Mirrors says this line is from a 1622 play by Philip Massinger. His post on the etymology is also worth reading.

Note 2: Oh, this little quote is even move fun than I thought. It occurred to me to look up cocatrice:

A serpent hatched from a cock’s egg and having the power to kill by its glance.

Intercrural means “taking place between the legs.” Interesting vocabulary addition.

1. Streets of Fire
2. Ring of Fire
3. flickr meme
4. Jesse Stuart
5. Ursula

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