h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

in the explanation for the 4-letter c*** word it reads:

"The word has Germanic cognates including old Norse (kunta), middle-Dutch (Kunte) and possibly High German (Kotze meaning prostitute), which all point to a pre-historic germanic ancestor kunton."

There seems to be at least one error: "Kotze" does not mean prostitute in german, but "puke"

But:

"High german" is the common language spoken all over todays germany, orginating from southern (High=Hilly) Germany, but brought to north Germany (where "flat german" - more similar to dutch and today's english- was spoken before) via Martin Luther's first german bible (yes the northern germans mostly dropped their own language for that book)

since i myself grew up and live in northern germany, i have a little knowledge of some "flat german" expressions: The most similar High German word to "c**t" is "kante" (meaning "edge"). The flat german equivalent is "kant", as in the flat Germans "waterkant" (="wateredge"). The high (=southern) Germans (who don't know much about water at all) would call it shortly (Wasser-) Küste. So if the english "c**t" origins from a german word, the original meaning should be found somewhere between "edge" and "coast".

Now imagine a female peeing: "c**t" could actually be derivated from "wateredge"

was anybody able to follow my logic?

Back Again to the german word "Kotze" (puke): Phonetically it itself is similar to the vulgar german word "Fotze" which does mean: "C**t" (~90% in usage as well - only it would never be adresse to a male - maybe in the homsexual scene)

Interesting stuff. I can't remember now whether it was me or Jimster who put in the etymologies. Whichever one of us it was, we'd have pulled them from dictionaries, Chambers in my case, I am not sure which dictionary Jimster would have used.

Thanks for reading and thanks for commenting though.

Ben

I’ve heard that the 'C' word is actually an old English language slang word for ‘sword sheath’, which makes quite a bit of sense when you think about it.

How interesting.

Though the question is which came first - the chicken or the egg. Was the word for sheath applied to the vagina, or a word for vagina applied to sheaths? Could be either, really.

Thanks for reading, and thanks for posting.

Cheers

Ben

"Was the word for sheath applied to the vagina, or a word for vagina applied to sheaths?"

I take it you know the word vagina comes from the Latin word for sheath?

No, I didn't know that. But it still begs the questions, since vaginas would have been around long before sheaths.

B