A Conversation for The Origins and Common Usage of British Swear-words
c***s in famous literature
Uncle Heavy [sic] Started conversation Jan 7, 2003
duke of rochester wrote a poem whose title i forgot. its about eating and drinking. the final line is
'and then, to c*nt'
delightfully expressive
c*nt i believe appears somewhere in chaucer, at which point it isnt crude. so does arse, for that matter...
c***s in famous literature
a girl called Ben Posted Jan 7, 2003
Ah, Rochester... Made Byron look like a goodie-two-shoes. (In answer to another question, yes, women obviously do go for bad guys, and not just Diedre Barlow, either. Though I NEVER saw the appeal of Mike Baldwin, myself).
I didn't know that Chaucer used the c-word. Wish I had. I would have liked to have included both those quotes in the entry, (or in the original entry, anyway).
B
c***s in famous literature
Kerr_Avon - hunting stray apostrophes and gutting poorly parsed sentences Posted Jan 7, 2003
Chaucer used it in 'The Wife of Bath'- although as Chaucer is in old english, it's actually spelt 'quainte', or something along those lines.
c***s in famous literature
Mol - on the new tablet Posted May 9, 2003
Chaucer uses the word in The Miller's Tale, when the bawdy character whose name escapes me was chatting up Hemde Nicolas's wife and "grabbed her by the queynte". Our A level English class was mystified by this, and the teacher wasn't about to explain it to us, and the text notes described the word "queynte" as meaning "pudendum" - which didn't leave us much wiser.
c***s in famous literature
a girl called Ben Posted May 9, 2003
"and the teacher wasn't about to explain it to us"
Funny that, eh?
Gotta love Chaucer, eh?
My aunt is the Wife of Bath, and my other aunt is Nanny Ogg... 
B
c***s in famous literature
Kerr_Avon - hunting stray apostrophes and gutting poorly parsed sentences Posted May 10, 2003
Our English master took great delight in explaining sexual references in our texts, in fact, sometimes I think he invented them, just so he could take about sex to 18 years and not get arrested...
c***s in famous literature
Uncle Heavy [sic] Posted May 10, 2003
ah yes. that staple of english teaching: the dodgy teacher who just loves to swear...
c***s in famous literature
Kerr_Avon - hunting stray apostrophes and gutting poorly parsed sentences Posted May 11, 2003
Oh how we groaned when DH Lawerence appeared on the set text list.
c***s in famous literature
Dyddgu Posted Sep 26, 2003
The Chaucer queynte is a word I'm very fond of for this anatomical wossname, because it means "a lovely or a pleasing thing". Which is a lot nicer than the harsh swear word it has become - there is no greater insult than to call someone a c***, which is a shame, as I much prefer to think of that part of my anatomy as a pleasing and lovely thing
The same word gave us the modern "quaint", which we all use for to describe pretty cottages.
c***s in famous literature
Kerr_Avon - hunting stray apostrophes and gutting poorly parsed sentences Posted Sep 26, 2003
Not quite so- It depends where you're from- I'd much rather be called a cxnt than a cow, for instance. It all depends on context and dielect.
Key: Complain about this post
c***s in famous literature
- 1: Uncle Heavy [sic] (Jan 7, 2003)
- 2: a girl called Ben (Jan 7, 2003)
- 3: Kerr_Avon - hunting stray apostrophes and gutting poorly parsed sentences (Jan 7, 2003)
- 4: Mol - on the new tablet (May 9, 2003)
- 5: a girl called Ben (May 9, 2003)
- 6: Kerr_Avon - hunting stray apostrophes and gutting poorly parsed sentences (May 10, 2003)
- 7: Uncle Heavy [sic] (May 10, 2003)
- 8: Kerr_Avon - hunting stray apostrophes and gutting poorly parsed sentences (May 11, 2003)
- 9: Dyddgu (Sep 26, 2003)
- 10: Kerr_Avon - hunting stray apostrophes and gutting poorly parsed sentences (Sep 26, 2003)
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