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

Agreed, Rainbow, that I'll call men bastards and women bitches.

But I have under extreme provocation used the c-word to describe men. Should I only apply it to women? But I don't know any women I dislike that much.

And then there was the memorable moment when my ex said "Life's a bitch, and then you marry a c***". There's no reply to that one really....

agcB

A c*** can only be female - for obvious reasons. There are lots of other words to use for really obnoxious men - B***s a****s, w****s, d***s, s********, - Oh, will this ever get through the moderators???

The c word may only be female by definition but it widely used on both sexes. In fact I'm sure its used far more often on men as most people tend to shy away from using the word in the presence of women. In my experience anyway.

Subcom Deidzoeb told me about a feminist festival in Penn State called the C***fest. Their objective, laudable but ludicrous, was to reclaim the word.

One of the organisers was quoted as saying something along the lines of "I want a woman to be able to say 'thankyou for calling me a "c***"'".

(That was difficult to puncutate!)

See my entry A Short Guide to Short Words (link in my personal space).

agcB

Back on the subject of gits - up here in NW UK we tend to use Get in this sense. For example the phrase "ignorant get" which is entirely comparable to "stupid b*****d" and offensive to a similar degree. (But then b*****d isn't really all that strong these days either.)

In the SW UK "ignorant" is used to mean "uncouth, rough, ill-mannered or rude" as well as the opposite of "educated". Is that true in the NW too?

I should post this in the British English thread, but I am here now, so here it is.

a geordie's daughter called Ben

Yes, that's the ticket up here as well. I thought that was fairly standard across the whole of colloquial UK English but I'm ready to be corrected.

It probably is. I just noticed it first in the SW - which is where I am from.

And of course I only socialise with very educated people...!

(Yeah, right!)

agcB

We're falling into the old trap of confusing different kinds of "meaning" and different kinds of "usage".

A c is a part of the female anatomy so you can only use it to refer to a female. Wrong! C has a fairly well recognised meaning, though it's not exactly recognised as a physiological term (it would be interesting to debate which of these it actually corresponds to). But, whatever its derivation and history, the word has no pleasant usage nowadays except perhaps among feminists trying to reclaim the language and - just possibly - in intimate conversation bordering on the "I love it when you talk dirty".

"Swear" words derived from words for male sex-tackle are most often applied to males, but the same applies to c and perhaps other "female" words. But isn't that just because men do most of the insulting in this world, and they spend most of their time insulting other men?

I'm male, I have been known to "swear", and I have been known to insult people, but I still say "they" because I refuse to be tarred with the same brush.

"I'll call men bas and women bis", says Ben the girl, and that's interesting. The dog word does not seem to be associated with the male of the species, though - interestingly - "dog" is yet another insult directed against women.

Someone else refers to people who "behave like bas". What the v**** k**** does that mean? How do you behave like a ba? I know the answer, or an answer, but I don't know where that meaning of the word comes from.

Decades ago, at a very respectable British university, I came across the academic study of pornolinguistics and scatolinguistics, which were to some extent taken as a joke. But there are some very strange syntactic patterns associated with "swearing", and the sexual sociolinguistics of insults is an unpleasantly interesting subject.

Scatolinguistics - wow! That makes talking about swearing so respectable, doesnt it?

I am fascinated by language anyway, and have started noticing the different ways words are used. Something IS a balls-up but it GOES tits-up, althought the effect is the same. And you go ON the piss, and HAVE a piss-up which is a night spent drinking, and

Well, I find it interesting.

And as I asked on another thread, why is is called a blow-job when you er suck? Still got me baffled, that one.

Take a look at my Short Guide to Short Words (linked from my personal space) for more scatolinguistical oddities.

(I'd love to know which university, when, I need ammunition to persuade the towers that I am not just standing in the playground saying 'pee, wee, willie, bum' over and over again).

a scatolinguist called Ben

(seeing as this has become sort of a swearing thread)
is it true that in the UK you guys use the term w*****ed as another word for pissed? (drunk)

>I could have sworn I've heard it thrown around on Red Dwarf<

yeah, they also say 'goit'. Is this just a red dwarf made up term?

Yes, Sh*tfaced too

Or a**holed.

should I check this right here? I have heared of many, many different words for drunk, its just w*****ed which threw me, as I was absolutely shocked (until I worked it out - or at least had an idea of what it could be) overhearing a few poms.. er.. english people say that when our meaning of the word is not something we discuss...

Thats interesting. I am really fascinated by the different ways Americans, Australians, New Zealanders, South Africans, English and Celts use language.

I have never heard wanked used to mean drunk, but that may be an age thing. I am a Brit, but at the tail end of my 30s.

What age were/are the people using it that way?

a very nearly middle aged old bat called Ben

"I went to the pub with my mates the other night, yeah. And we drank so much that we ended up wanked, every one of us. And Kevin tried mixing his drinks and ended up being so badly wanked that we had to carry him home."

Hmmm.

As a young Brit I'd just like to point out that using the word 'w****d' in that type of situation would round the evening off with a swift kicking from the great big homophobic skin-head in the corner.

er...its w******d, not w****d...BIG difference

All the same, I've never heard it used in the "I am insanely drunk" sense.

Besides, it's usually more scatalogical when describing drunkeness. S**tfaced, a*******d, p****d, bladdered...

I have, many times, also b******d

Bet you've never been rat-arsed, though.