eggcorn: "profound" (profane) words

[David A. Daniel]

>I've discussed this many times with various friends over the years and
>nearly every woman has said that, of the usual offensive words, "cunt" is
>the worst thing you can call a woman, especially from a man, I believe. If
>I
>remember right, "bitch" sounds worse coming from another woman. Of course,
>this is merely anecdotal.

>Scot

I ran into this over 20 (probably more like 25) years ago. A very, very good
female friend, lots of banter, all cool. She said something - I don't
remember what - and I said, "Cunt!". Her eyes got wide, corners of mouth
turned down, veins showing in the neck, teeth bared, major stress evident
here. Then she seemed to get a grip - sort of - and simply said, "WHAT did
you say?" rather than starting the WMD attack that had seemed imminent. I
could see my good friend was upset and even through the alcohol-induced fog
I was able to discern the reason. So I said, "Wait a minute. Why is calling
you a cunt not the same as calling a guy a prick? I mean, it would be kind
of silly for me to call you a prick." She dropped her gaze to the lower
left, a posture of thoughtfulness, and said, "Oh. Hmmmmmm." And things went
on from there very normally, as before. So I repeat the question to the
world today, 25 years or so hence. She got it, but only after I had
encouraged her to think about it.

Now, here is something interesting (at least to me): Only in fairly recent
years have Brits begun referring to one another regularly - on the street,
so to speak - as "assholes" or, for the more linguistically conservative,
"arseholes". There was a time, not long ago, when "asshole" was considered a
total Americanism, and British men referred to one another, in this context,
after a few pints down t'pub, as "cunts". This practice does continue to
this day though it is losing ground to the Americanism. So, I would be
extremely interested to know what American females would think - in the name
of political correctness - of British males referring to each other (male to
male) as "cunts". I was going to make this multiple choice but there were
too many permutations to make it viable.
DAD









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