eggcorn: "profound" (profane) words

[Dennis R. Preston]

In a number of studies done in the 70s, "cunt" was always ranked the
"dirtiest" word in English, by both men and women. Frank Anshen
turned up some interesting ethnic differences in one of his studies,
but the top spot never changed if I remember these studies correctly.
When I ask big classes of UG students at Michigan State today, it's
still on top (so to speak).

dInIs



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>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       "David A. Daniel" <dad at POKERWIZ.COM>
>Subject:      Re: eggcorn: "profound" (profane) words
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>>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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--
Dennis R. Preston
University Distinguished Professor
Department of English
15C Morrill Hall
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48824
517-353-4736
preston at msu.edu

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