The 'c' word

Well mine was baptised in Campbeltown and he does lol but we're North of Ully now and I really can't imagine it from the elderly über-prod 😂

@Njordsgrrrl can guarantee you even the wee frees let out a few belters!

@MargueritaPink I never mentioned your name and hadn’t even seen your post before I wrote that but from cunts and badgers to Wombles and boots you seem absolutely hellbent on having a contrary opinion to others.

I have heard it, but that doesn’t count? I’m not Scottish, just live here so I have no skin in this game so to speak and couldn’t give a flying fuck whether you think I’m a true Scotswoman, whatever that is to you. Don’t even say many of these things but you are determined to be personally offended by anything I say and you really do seem properly het up about it all so I will bow out now and leave you to it - enjoy!

I know that was flippant but there are such places. Where I live the nearest neighbour away across the cattle grid issues telt for hanging out washing on a Sunday and for folk being the wrong sort of Protestant. I think there are lots on restrictions on buying fuel / cinema on Lewis etc etc. I would pay good money to hear some of these people start dishing out "ya prick" to each other.

There must be little bubbles. Perhaps in one of the royal palaces where no cunt ever calls Her Majesty an old boot.

No actually I haven't. Your point being?

Do you want some affirmation that you are a true Scotswoman Stripe? You seem rather obsessed by this. I'm puzzled by it. Does it invalidate you if others' experiences are different?

@Njordsgrrrl it is used widely but I expect you’ll now have a deluge of ‘really? How strange never ever heard a Scottish person use that ever’.

Second result mobile.twitter.com/sturgeonabuse?lang=en

I'd wager a Google of "Nicola Sturgeon Boot" would get some results. Maybe I read too many football forums. It's also a verb as in "boot her in the X"

"boot" is used in Scotland a lot

Is it ? Not a word I've ever come across.

He has never made me feel so young ironically even though he is the oldest man I have ever loved and I try to boost his esteem constantly because that's what you do when you love someone. In my mind.

I'll shut up. Don't think he's called me a cunt though. And wouldn't dream of cos because he still doesn't get the erasure of 'woman' because it won't affect him.

"boot" is used in Scotland a lot. It seems to describe any female over the age of twenty or unattractive ones of twenty five and I have just pointed out that he isn't twenty, thirty or even forty himself any more. It's gone down so well me telling him he's middle aged too and five years older than me that he's told me to go to bed 😂

Honestly though, the texts he gets affectionately calling him a knob riding cock jockey etc etc from colleagues 😐

DisrespectfulAdultFemale - I apologise, I used the word obscenity when I could have said profanity or swear word, but to me there is a difference between a garden-variety insult and profanity. Calling someone stupid/ugly/crazy is an insult, but calling someone a stupid cunt is a bit different imo.

I will admit that I am American and so the connotations of many insults/profanities are different here. Faggot is almost entirely used against gay men rather than by them. Cunt is, again, used by men against women in most instances (and is especially popular amongst gay men, as if it is their word to "reclaim"). Again, I don't support banning words, but to act as if the etymology of insults is insignificant is a bit silly to me.

Having lived in both north east Scotland and Ayrshire I am aware of huge differences in dialect in particular the word in question which is used freely in Ayrshire but rarely heard further north. When lots of us have lived in places where it’s widely used I’m a bit about other posters saying this isn’t the case

No one was saying it isn't the case if that is the poster's experience. Several posters have said it was not their experience that the blanket statements (which always appear on this type of thread) that the word is commonplace and no big deal in Scotland are not their experience.

You say yourself it is rarely heard further north. I'm a bit by the determination some posters seem to have that if it was their experience it must be a universal Scottish experience.

Having lived in both north east Scotland and Ayrshire I am aware of huge differences in dialect in particular the word in question which is used freely in Ayrshire but rarely heard further north. When lots of us have lived in places where it’s widely used I’m a bit about other posters saying this isn’t the case.
I don’t tend to use it but wouldn’t want to see it banned. I do swear a bit but try to limit this and have turned the the festive Home Alone favourite of ‘you big horse’s ass’ at the moment. Though it’s very difficult to not pronounce it arse!
Banning definitely a bad idea imo

I’m very sorry if I offended anyone but I stand by my statement that, in many areas (I’m from nowhere near the area in my name, so can’t speak to there) it is used in the manner that I mentioned. It was not one of my party who said it on the train so I’m afraid I can’t be held repsonsible for their using it but mentioned it merely to highlight that it does, in fact, get bandied about...however I see we’re now getting offended by the appropriation of animals so I don’t think this conversation is something I will be of any use to. Won’t somebody think of the badgers

Opened this thread thinking the c word was 'cis'

Now that's far more offensive!

Yes I would- thank you. !

Margarita- ds got this for Christmas. You’d love it!

Of all the genitalia-connected insults, the one that I find most amusing (also learned on MN) is cock-lodger

I would make an exception for that one because unlike the generic ones it has a very specific meaning.

I don't use any of those words as insults. Cow, mare, sow and bitch are female animals and I would never use them to mean anything else and I do use them for that.

I don't use the male insults , dick etc as insults either. If I want to use insulting language about a person I will use something specific to that person - not a meaningless generic word.

I mentioned "boor" for example. I have described some one as an "ignorant, loud- mouthed boor". I also described someone as "slimy and oleaginous and a living Reverend Collins ".

I'm also fond of "conceited gowk! puff'd up wi' windy pride" (Burns). It covers a fair number of people.

"Bully" pre- fixed with a suitable adjective (spiteful, cowardly,vicious) tells me far more about a person than "dick" etc.

I would also say someone is talking codswallop, not bollocks.

I'm not convinced by the "taking cunt back " argument- far too many people, men and women use it only as an insult.

Yes, it's never occurred to me that it's about maternal behaviour being subverted into an insult, to be honest.

Also, if cunt and pussy refer to exactly the same female genitalia, why do they have opposite meanings as an insult?

And, we still use male genitalia as an insult to men. Dick, prick, bellend, knob. People who talk balls and bollocks. All male bits.

I'm not sure 'bitchy' is about dams protecting their pups - more often observed, especially if you have a male dog is bitches telling dogs 'No!' - and the dog fully understanding 'no means no'.

Generally to insult a man you compare him to a woman /disrespect 'his' women / call his hetero-virility into question.

For women, an insult tends to compare her to an animal.

And there is the hierarchy plain to see.

Of course there is loads of feminist discussion to be had around swear words.

Banning words is not the answer.

And the phrase cunty type of woman seems to make a lot of posters happy. That does feel powerful. I'm an original type of woman, one with a cunt. Deal with it.

Men are rather uncomfortable with the realities of women's bodies, a lot of them, always have been, hence 'cunt' is the worst of the worst... Agreeing with them helps no-one.