Germaine Greer on the etymology of ‘cunt’. Taken from the BBC’s ‘Balderdash and Piffle’.

I’ve posted Part One above (aired in 2007). Greer runs through a brief history of the word “cunt”, discussing how this word has gained further potency throughout the ages, when other offensive words have lost some of their shock value. Why has this word become the most offensive word in the English language? Greer notes that when lexicographer Francis Grose published A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue in the late 1700s, he couldn’t bring himself to write the word “cunt”. Instead, he wrote it as many people are used to seeing it even today: “c**t”. As part of the definition, Grose writes:

a nasty name for a nasty thing. 

Unfortunately, these two ideas pervade English-speaking cultures to this day: the word is repugnant and too ugly to utter, and women’s sex is also scary and too filthy a topic for discussion in civil society.

See Part Two here, where Greer talks about how she tried to change the meaning of the word “cunt” to something positive in the 1970s, drawing inspiration from the feminist movement (to which she was a central figure) as well as the civil rights movement, which sought to reclaim and politicise damaging slurs. Greer recalls:

I tried to take the malice out of it. I wanted women to be able to say it. The same way I would say: “You think cunt is nasty? I’m here to tell you cunt is nice. Like “Black is Beautiful”. Cunt is delicious. Cunt is powerful. Cunt is strong.

Ah - it didn’t work. And now, in a way, I’m sort of, perversely pleased, ‘cause it meant that it kept that power.

Greer notes how women don’t generally embrace any terms that describe their genitals, and particularly not this word. This adds stigma to women’s vaginas and women’s sexuality in general. Watch both videos, I highly recommend them for the social science analysis as well as for people who are interested in languages.

Greer’s argument raises some important issues: what does it mean for women that their vocabulary for describing their bodies is limited to clinical terms like “vagina”, nonsense words (don’t get me started on “vajayjay”), or non-specific phrases like “my front part”? What does it do to gender relationships more broadly when the word “cunt” is a loathsome way to verbally pummel others? Not all women have vaginas or vulvas, but being unable, unwilling or uninterested to appropriate this term and give it a more positive meaning does society damage.

The history of the word “cunt” shows that the patriarchal relations that banned this word in the first place are connected to the present-day reticence to speak about women’s sexualities on equal footing with men’s sexualities. Men’s sexuality is active and celebrated; women’s sexuality is passive and shameful if it’s discussed in the open. There is also a disturbing link between the way in which the word is used today and gender violence: calling a man a “cunt” is emasculating; saying it to a woman is the epitome of hatred and anger. (Don’t make me link to Tom Cruise yelling “Respect the Cock and tame the Cunt” in the otherwise sublime film Magnolia. Okay I linked regardless, but it was for your educational purposes.)

Colloquially, women who use the word “cunt” are looked down upon, depending on your social circles. While words describing male genitalia (“cock” for example) are also used as swearing and to insult, they don’t carry the same potency as yelling “cunt”. Plus, these masculine words are also allowed to be sexy and there is not the same stigma, ugliness and violence attached.

Greer concludes that perhaps its best that “cunt” remains a dangerous word because it represents the power of female sexuality. I don’t agree. Swearing in public is not something I advocate, but as a sociologist, I see that having inequality in the way we use gendered language in our everyday lives speaks of the broader gender inequalities that persist. We might take it for granted that the word “cunt” is the worst thing you can call someone - but have we stopped to think what this says about female sex? Language is not innocuous. Language choices and social meaning are culturally loaded with society’s mores about what’s “good” and “bad”. The taboos around the word “cunt” tells us something truly disturbing about how society denigrates women’s bodies and sex.

I obviously support the idea that we change the meaning of “cunt” to something positive. What do you think? Should we re-appropriate this word? 

A more ironic or parody government, a logocracy is a government ruling through words. Described in Washington Irving’s 1807 work, Salmagundi, a logocracy is a government that uses tricky wording to control its people. The Soviet Union has been accused of being a logocracy, citing that its language was a “”stereotyped jargon consisting of formulas and empty slogans, whose purpose was to prevent people from thinking outside the boundaries of collective thought”. George Orwell’s 1984 is a good example of a logocracy, and used the Soviet Union’s “Neo-language” as the basis for its Newspeak. (via Listverse 10 Lesser Known or Used Forms of Government)

A more ironic or parody government, a logocracy is a government ruling through words. Described in Washington Irving’s 1807 work, Salmagundi, a logocracy is a government that uses tricky wording to control its people. The Soviet Union has been accused of being a logocracy, citing that its language was a “”stereotyped jargon consisting of formulas and empty slogans, whose purpose was to prevent people from thinking outside the boundaries of collective thought”. George Orwell’s 1984 is a good example of a logocracy, and used the Soviet Union’s “Neo-language” as the basis for its Newspeak.

(via Listverse 10 Lesser Known or Used Forms of Government)

Dominant discourse of whiteness in The Economist

Economist-Staff is a website whose sole purpose is to point out white cultural dominance within The Economist, one of the world’s most respected economic publications. The Economist magazine shapes its global economic analyses through highly specific racial, ethnic and linguistic lenses.
The Economist-Staff website began in response to an article in The Economist that attempted to answer “Why are Korean women so good at golf?” The Economist Staff points out that is a problematic question to begin with, let alone the article itself, which reproduces racial and ethnic stereotypes. Check out the rest of the Economist-Staff site, which refutes The Economist’s claims that the magazine is about diversity, and that it is “the enemy of privilege, pomposity and predictability”. In the graphics below, we see that one way through which whiteness discourses are perpetuated in the magazine is through the English language.

Languages spoken by The Economist Editorial Staff

*Language list is based on the selection from the staff directory

Specialised Countries & Languages Spoken by Staff


9 of 9
United Kingdom
specialists speak
English

2 of 2
Russia
specialists speak
Russian

3 of 7
China
specialists speak
Chinese

0 of 3
Japan
specialists speak
Japanese

2 of 6
Middle East & North Africa
specialists speak
Arabic
•
1 of 6
speak
Hebrew
•
1 of 6
speak
Persian

0 of 5
Sub-Saharan Africa
specialists speak
Afrikaans
•
3 of 5
speak
French
•
0 of 5
speak
Swahili

3 of 6
Latin & South America
specialists speak
Portuguese
•
4 of 6
speak
Spanish

0 of 4
South Asia
specialists speak
Bengali
•
4 of 4
speak
English
•
0 of 4
speak
Hindi
•
0 of 4
speak
Gujarati

*Language lists are alphabetically displayed, and based on the selection from the staff directory

Source: Economist-Staff.

How do you like your rappers? Aged two and super deliciously cute? Here you go. 

Cuteness aside, Valerie Chepp provides a very useful postmodernist sociological analysis of this clip. This discourse analysis shows how the social dynamics of learning language, such as emulating patterns of speech, gestures and inflections of emotion, can occur prior to learning the meaning of words. 

This home video of 2-year-old Khaliyl Iloyi rapping with his father can be used to illustrate Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure’s (1857-1913) concepts of langue and parole which, for Saussure, comprise a larger system of signs he calls language. Langue entails the total system of possibilities; it is the abstract set of structured rules that a given speech community internalizes. Parole, on the other hand, consists of individual speech acts and the message contained within them. Saussure argues that individuals don’t pick and choose what belongs to langue or parole; rather, langue is social (in that it operates according to a set of rules that are in place before and after our existence) and parole is individual. Another way Saussure understood this distinction was that langue is a static, synchronic system while parole is diachronic and contingent. This video clip illustrates how, even at age two, Khaliyl understands the basic underlying structure of language (langue), even if he has yet to master the meaning of individual speech acts (parole). He is engaging in the social enterprise of langue in that he has internalized the abstract rules of language for his speech community, even though a meaningful message has yet to be put into practice (parole). 

Essentially, Chepp points out that learning how to act our speech patterns is just as critical as knowing how to speak. The way humans exchange verbal and non-verbal signs is central to the transmission of culture and belonging. The child in the video, Khaliyl Iloyi, comes from a musical family. He has learned how to mimic the behaviourisms of his rapper father even though he cannot speak. These non-verbal cues - what Bourdieu calls habitus, are part of the embodiment of culture and history. We learn how to act out our culture before we really understand verbal meaning. This is why the way we behave as adults seems natural and normal - because we’ve internalised how we are supposed to behave as infants, and we learn to take this for granted. 

Henry Rollins - Talking From The Box. (Intro.)

In his books and in interviews, Rollins is sceptical and dismissive of academics and researchers who read his body of work as texts worthy of scientific investigation. I aim to do a sociology of Rollins because his use of humour provides a fascinating critique of the experience of alienation in American society (anomie) and his changing performance of masculinity within the music industry is also interesting. Rollins is self-reflexive and political. He is a unique social commentator specifically because he works across many fields: he is a musician, a writer, a poet, a spoken word performer, publisher, radio and TV host, world traveller, social activist, and entrepreneur.

If you haven’t watched Talking From the Box and you’re interested in music, sociology or the art of words, I highly recommend it. He never once utters fillers in his speech. I’ve seen him a dozen times and he doesn’t say ‘like’, ‘um’ or ‘ah’ once during his two hour shows. He swears a lot though. Enjoy this clip, and hunt down the rest of the video. More on Rollins from me in the near future.

George Carlin’s classic comedic skit on The Seven Words You Can Never Say on TV in full (from his 1972 comedy album, Class Clown). Warning lots of swearing - obviously - but it’s a very amusing take on how television regulatory bodies in America decided some words are not okay for adults to hear, even though glamorised portrayals of killing and rape are screened daily, and I might add, despite the fact that the perpetuation of negative stereotypes of minority groups is a-okay. Even though it’s from the 1970s and some of the words considered too offensive for TV audiences have changed, Carlin’s comedic critique has resonance today. I especially like that he covers double entendres - my second favourite literary device.

It’s a shame that Carlin has a joke about how some of these words were banned in order to not offend ‘some ladies’ - as if women demand to be protected from some words more than men.

Still, it’s worth having a listen. Let me know what you think?