NSFW Do the sounds that form a swearword have an impact on its severity, despite its meaning? (see details).

Interesting to ponder, but I think that “cunt” is offensive to many because it was designed to be offensive. If “gzub” had found its way into the common parlance to mean the same thing, then it would.

Henry James and Edith Wharton idly decided that “summer afternoon’’ was among the most beautiful words in English. There is the sibilant “s” and the swallowed “t,” a glottal stop, i am guessing.

I can’t remember having heard “twat” spoken. “Twit,” yes.

I love it when you talk dirty ;¬}

@gailcalled Yes, but “count” has that lovely rounded vowel and a hidden /w/ when it is pronounced (/kaʊnt/ or /kawnt/. “Cunt”, however, has a harsh pronunciation /kʌnt/—no diphthong, just a solid vowel before the velar sound.

I think monosyllabic words that cannot be elongated have a harsher sound (particularly when they end on a consonant like “k” in “fuck”.) The minor ones end with lighter sounds such as “hell” which ends quite beautifully compared to the rest.

^^Too late. I caught it.

@ucme: And a voiced bilabial fricative to you.

The woman who created Spanx said she knew the name had to have the k sound in it. Something about that sound be appealing, or successful in the past, or sticks with people, or something? I wish I could remember exactly. That could account for fuck and cunt standing out so much?

Think about how many negative words contain the /ʌ/ sound: cunt, fuck, smut, slut, crud, butt, gut, sludge, etc.

Many of them begin and end with stop consonants and many begin with consonant clusters. It’s well known that people find languages with more consonant clusters and words that end in consonants as sounding “harsh” (see English speakers’ perception of German and Russian).

I’d say the sound is a big part of the words’ offensiveness. Interestingly enough, the rudest word in the Latin language was “landica”, the word for “clitoris” (Roman men seemed to be both terrified and fascinated by the idea of a large clitoris). I find the word landica to be pretty sounding myself, at least compared with English “dirty words”.

@gailcalled Ooh, you saucy mare.
Tell me more about your world famous pussy, I do enjoy it so.

To actually answer the question, cunt definitely sounds harsh/abrasive.
Wheras pissant simply rolls off the tongue, like orange sherbert minus the bitter aftertaste.

@ucme: Check out Mrs. Slocum on Are You Being Served?

@gailcalled Trouble with her pussy was, it mirrored the hair on her head, a huge pink bush :¬(

@ucme: Apparently Mollie Sugden originally allowed “hair and make-up” tp color her own hair; but eventually settled for sherbet-colored wigs.

I guess the sounds a cuss word is said with can add to the severity, especially since a swear word is known by all to be initially offensive. I don’t think it plays too much on its severity though, seeing as non cuss words can have as much impact if underlined with voiced emphasis. Like when someone says, ’‘come here now!, the now is just as strong, and the meaning is set across just as much as a well placed fuck.

Also about the word cunt, it’s interesting to note that in some parts of the UK, the word isn’t always used as something offensive. It’s an all around term for a person. It can be the equivalent of buddy, dude, what have you. Although someone from the UK would know better than me, and I don’t believe that this usage of the word cunt occurs in all of the UK.

@Symbeline I have never heard of cunt being used in that way here (uk). It is generally considered here to be the most offensive, single swear-word there is.

Hm, maybe it’s just in Scotland then?

Scottish slangs

But you’re right, even there, the word cunt is originally for something negative.

It’s not a swear word….

But moist always sounds pretty dirty to me…

Maybe that’s just my own mind…

@thebluewaffle I wonder if the sounds that make up the word Moist are part of what makes it sound so dirty? (Apart from the obvious associations.) It’s a word to linger over isn’t it?

Mmmm-ooooiiii-sssssssss-t :-)

@gailcalled She must have been requesting we all stroke her merkin then, perhaps.

@ucme: I don’t have to look up “merkin.” It’s used on our side of the pond, albeit rarely.

@harple It didn’t start out as the most offensive word. It only became more offensive than all the other cuss words round abouts the 18th century. Interestingly, I’ve had other Brits tell me that it’s only in America that cunt is considered the most vulgar, and that in the UK, it’s just another swear word. Maybe it’s regional?

@gailcalled I was in no way pouring scorn on your knowledge of the pubic wig, just liked the photo attached to the definition, wonder if she named it milo.

Gunt is also one of my favourite words.

A description of a woman’s fat, located between her gut and her cunt

= Gunt

I recall from a sociology of women class that “cunt” is derived from the word for bunny waaay back in the day (I think it was originally something like “cünti”). I’m not sure if that makes it better or worse.

@gorillapaws We have no freaking clue what the etymology of ‘cunt’ is. This is a really good round-up of what we do and don’t know.

@Aethelflaed That link made me dizzy, I only skimmed it. I would think it is from the word cunnilingus, from the latin, and then shortened up to one syllable for some drama. It always seemed obvious to me. But, I guess maybe I was wrong, I did not see that explanation when I skimmed your link, did you?

@JLeslie Basically, it says that there are so many possible roots (Greek, Latin, several Germanic languages, Indo-European), and that those languages all have words that sound similar and might be somewhat related, but nothing even resembling a slam dunk, so we really don’t know. There are many Germanic languages which seem to have a similar-sounding word, and many scholars think it comes from a Proto-Germanic language over two millennia ago. Others suggest the Latin for vulva, cunnus. Maybe the Wikipedia page is more your style?

@Aethelflaed Many words have somewhat mysterious beginnings. The Germanic explanation seems very plausible. It’s not the first time I have seen a word that seemed to have possibilities of both German and Latin beginnings.