He’ll give us something to cry about
Ricky Gervais is so thoughtful and wise and empathetic.
People offended by the "C word" would hear it a lot less if they didn't go around acting like such cunts.
— Ricky Gervais (@rickygervais) May 28, 2016
People offended by the “C word” would hear it a lot less if they didn’t go around acting like such cunts.
Isn’t that just the truth?
Similarly people offended by the “N word” would hear it a lot less if they didn’t go around acting like such niggers, right? People offended by the “F word” would hear it a lot less if they didn’t go around acting like such faggots? People offended by the “K word” would hear it a lot less if they didn’t go around acting like such kikes? And so on?
That tweet of his has 8.4 thousand likes.
Hey I have an idea! Trump should totally get Ricky Gervais to be his running mate. You have to be a US citizen to run for office, but what the hell, billionaires can do what they like, and Gervais would be perfect – if one bully is good two bullies must be even better.
That tweet is such classic bully-thinking – if you don’t want me to bully you, you shouldn’t be the kind of person I like to bully. I would bully you a lot less if you didn’t go around acting like someone I don’t like. It’s your fault that I bully you, because you’re such a loser and I’m so fabulous.
Why are people like that so popular?
Gervaise is great in some ways but on this issue he has his head lodged firmly up his arse.
Not wanting to defend Gervais, but. (You can hear a but coming, can’t you?) UK usage is maybe a bit more casual and less gendered than in the US, more like the French ‘con’. It’s not a word I’d ever use as an insult. AFAICT it’s exclusively applied to men. Yes, it’s definitely problematic, but not – in UK usage at least – at all analogous to the other words you mention. I don’t know: in the US is it applied to women too?
Because some kids learned that following the bully got you picked on less.
Anne, I think Ophelia has heard that. In fact, I think she has heard it ad nauseum. She has also answered that, and is not impressed, as are the rest of us not impressed. Over here, sissy is almost universally applied to men, as well. It is a word that refers to acting like a woman, and is universally an insult. Applying a word for feminine anatomy to a man does not make it less of an insult; in fact, it might make it more so.
Sorry, I had to say it, because I’m sick of hearing that. Thanks for listening.
OK, iknklast. No need to apologise. I know why it’s offensive – I find it offensive too – and it was maybe foolish of me to attempt to grade the degree of offence. Peace.
Someone on Twitter told me I was making a category error. Please. “Cunt” is an epithet, and Gervais is obviously discussing it as an epithet in that tweet, and I compare it to other epithets. There is no category error.
The lengths men—and some women—will go to to obscure the depth of the insult is sickening.
Also, a friend of mine in Scotland had it yelled at her by some youths, so no, it is used on women in the UK and it is quite hostile when it’s used on them.
He kept at it. On and on. Such a good look, a man telling a woman that “cunt” as an epithet is just nasty, not misogynist.
It gets used on women in the UK plenty! And plenty of women in the UK detest it because they consider it misogynist – yet still we get this crap about how it’s not reeeeeeeeeeeeeally misogynist, that’s all a mistake by these stupid provincial Americans who think everybody uses it the way they do.
In the US it’s almost entirely applied to women. But please don’t tell me its just a cultural difference. To begin with Americans Bill Maher, Penn Gillette, etc. use it, in the nasty anti-American way against women for more. Secondly, yes, in the UK it’s not considered as obscene and usually is directed toward men… which make a more analoguous to the American use of “pussy” which is common enough it can get onto must standard cable television shows and is used almost exclusively for men… which means it isn’t misogynist??? Because there’s nothing misogynistic about considering it be a great insult to men to be called a vulgar term for a woman’s sex organ?
And any way. Why should it be Americans responsibilty to “lighten up”? Is it equally valid to ask a Brit to recognize what a world means to his american audience?
Its just nasty.
It’s also inaccurate for Gervais to talk about “people offended by” when it’s not offense that people are worried about. Misogynist slurs aren’t harmful because they are “offensive”, they are harmful because they constitute an oppressive act within a system of oppression (everyone needs to go and read Mary Kate McGowan’s “Oppressive Speech” right now). While Gervais’ intentions might be as pure as the driven snow in using the word “cunt”, that doesn’t mean he is not inadvertently licensing misogynists in his audience. Which is of course an international audience – talking about what “cunt” means in private conversation in Britain is a complete red herring when you are defending its use on a global platform.
I think a lot of people think the “it doesn’t mean that in the UK!” non-argument is reasonable because it’s one in the eye for Murkan imperialism. We’re being the big Yankee beast bullying all the smaller Anglophone countries with our evil claim that cunt-as-epithet really is misogynist.
If that word is not offensive in some parts of UK culture, it is because of habitual use, not because the word is not intended to offend/oppress/intimidate.
Woozy – quite. Of course there is no point using pussy directed at women because we, and they, already know they are weak scardy cats (/s).
Ophelia, if you are a stupid American provincial, then I’m a stupid NZ provincial. Cunt is far more frowned upon here than pretty much anything except racial epithets. Even then it would depend on context as they are in different sub-categories. Of course you could call someone a black cunt for added points from the multiplier effect…
OY! I didn’t say it’s not offensive in the UK. Of course it is. And *of course* it’s misogynistic. Do you think I’m oblivious to that? Sigh. And I recognise that it’s way more offensive in the US. I was just saying it’s not as loud and offensive this side of the pond. All sorts of reasons, including the fact it’s usually aimed at men. Yeah, I guess I was tone trolling or something. But seriously, women this side of the pond don’t get so exercised about it – even though we totally recognise that it’s an insult based on a female (am I allowed to say that?) body part.
And *of course* I’m not saying American women shouldn’t be outraged by it. I’m just saying – and now I’m wondering why I bothered – that Brit women tend on the whole not to get so exercised by it. Just pointing out a cultural difference, not absolutes. (Excuse me while I go and do a little private poll to check whether I’m an outlier on the not-totally-outraged Brit scale of outrage.)
Hi Anne. I’m not saying you said that. I’m saying that if it is not regarded as offensive by some parts of society in the UK (or elsewhere), it is because the use has become normalised – i.e. people are habituated to hearing it.
Half the population insults one another by calling them the other half of the population.
Yes it is common, and yes we are used to it. But stop a mo and think what that means to have the go to insult for half the population be the other half of the population of the world.
Brit chiming in (English Midlands flavour).
I’m pretty sick of the word’s usage being defended too. Yes, in some parts of England (can’t speak for Scotland or Wales), particularly London and the South-East, for certain groups it is a careless, habitual, occasionally affectionate insult. The key word there is insult. It is an insult because it is a word for female genitals carrying with it all the dirt, risk of contamination, and fear of feminisation traditionally associated with that part of the female body. In some areas, when used by men, to other men, repetition and habitual use have covered up the real meaning of what is being said.
In every other context it is still the most obscene word you can use. It’s the ultimate insult when used towards men outside those habitutated to it (use it to a bloke here in Birmingham and you’ll risk getting your head kicked in), or to any woman anywhere. Socially we are inured to pretty much any other word up to and including, “fuck”. These will appear regularly on TV, though the hardest will probably be after the 9pm “watershed”, but cunt? That’s a very rare beast (accidental slip ups regarding Jeremy Hunt”s name by James Naughtie and Andrew Marr notwithstanding).
The word has more of a presence in stand-up comedy. Bernard Manning famously used it in a gag. (As did Peter Cook and Dudley Moore). Roy “Chubby” Brown uses it regularly but the point is that these uses are intended to shock and offend. That wouldn’t work if the word was accepted.
So, yes, in some areas of Britain for some social groups “cunt” is inoffensive used as an in group word. Note that: “In group”. If someone from outside that group called one of the guys that, he’d be in trouble. Plus, in group words like this are an exhibition of privilege so I don’t think there’s any good argument for defending the use of an offensive word just because one group of white dudes like to use it as a typical English affectionate insult. Most of the rest of us are of a similar mind to the US – though being British we express this in a different way. Lots of tut-tutting and cold looks etc.
I’m in the UK and working in a very male dominated environment. Cunt over here still has a special status as the rudest rude word of them all and will shock. It’s is more commonly applied to men but can be applied to women. Usually it is a bad insult saved to describe very unpleasant people.
Some of the men where I work will use it casually to describe someone they find irritating (but have no serious animosity towards) but these are guys who use the word “fuck” so often that it has no meaning. Recently, I used the word “cunt” to a couple of them. I was quoting a very rude song that I had warned them was too filthy to actually sing. They kept daring me to sing it too them but were pretty shocked when I did.
So UK usage is complex. I hear that it is used far more in Scotland but have not been there recently enough to comment. I think cunt is becoming more common because fuck has lost its shock value.
Anyone coming to the UK, please be aware that cunt is generally considered an extremely crude word. When I hear people saying it’s not a bad word over here I just imagine some poor foreigner blurting it out because they’ve been told it’s OK and finding out it really isn’t.
‘Con’ seems deeply entrenched in French usage. I’ve seen it consistently euphemised in film subtitles.
Of course ‘prick,’ ‘putz,’ etc. are used at least as casually. Sexualizing contempt is a widespread phenomenon. Gervais is being childish here. ‘You can’t make me!’ is the bad part. Resisting being policed is legitimate. What if he’d ‘transgressed’ against Sex Workers, or failed to dot the ‘i’ in whatever terminology was being enforced by the Trans Police?
Anne @ 14 – the conversation wasn’t about your comment. It was about Ricky Gervais, and then about the guy who patronizingly tried to set me straight on Twitter. Nobody thinks you’re oblivious to anything, and there’s no need to sigh. We weren’t talking about you.
John the Drunkard – resisting being policed is legitimate no matter what? No exceptions? So nobody should be “policed” for calling Obama a nigger, for instance? Trump should not be “policed” for announcing that Mexicans are rapists? Twitter bullies should not be “policed” for barraging women with misogynist insults?
Bullshit. If Gervais had called Sex Workers “cunts” then he should be “policed” – that is, disputed in a blog post.
Steamshovelmama @ 17 –
An example I’ve noticed (and mentioned here before I think) was in Scott & Bailey. Janet and Rachel use “twat” as an insult freely, and I think perps say “fuck” now and then – but the one time “cunt” came up, Rachel told the room full of cops the guy she’d been interviewing “called me a…[pause]…starts with c, rhymes with hunt?”
Celebrities offended by being called the “A word” would hear it a lot less if they didn’t go around acting like such Assholes.
@Ophelia #22
Yeah, twat is a lot more common and not considered particularly obscene, especially in working class culture. You wouldn’t use it in front of your maiden aunt, it’s vulgar, rude and crude but it lacks the big shock value of cunt. It’s pretty freely acceptable on post-watershed TV while “fuck” certainly can be used but would usually be limited in frequency.
Having said that, twat means the same as cunt and is still an insult in the same vein (feminising etc etc) so I find it, if anything, even more annoying. An even commoner word that is considered not really rude at all is “twit” which is derived from twat. Then there’s berk which is just as mild and a lot of people don’t realise it’s rhyming slang for cunt (from Berkeley Hunt).
The only real male genitalia based insult that’s common in the UK is prick which is disparaging and dismissive but fairly mild compared to the female derived ones.
I was talking to my partner about this and he pointed out that as far as TV is concerned the US made Game of Thrones is by far the worst offender – and there was a point where they evidently realised they could get away with cunt and started (over) using it regularly. On BBC produced TV, cunt isn’t banned but there would need to be a good script reason to use it. You might get the odd thing on Channel 4 – which has long considered itself “modern” and “edgy” – that uses the word with more frequency but, again, that’s because of the shock value.
Gervaise says and does some good things politically but he has a real blindspot about this. People have challenged him over and over again but he just digs his heels in. It’s a shame because I have a lot of time for him otherwise.
Steamshovelmama, I know, I hate the commonplace use of “twat.” Are you sure about the origin of “twit” though? I’ve never heard that – and I thought it was the other way around: people in the UK started using “twat” because they thought it was a variant of “twit.” “Twat” hasn’t always been commonplace there – you never hear it on oldies like Morse and so on. I was jolted when I heard it on Scott & Bailey. (Not enough to stop watching though; one of my favorite shows of all time.) It’s still extremely rude here and not used on network tv.
I looked up “twit” in the Concise Oxford and it doesn’t confirm that – origin unknown, perhaps from the verb, meaning to needle etc.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/twit
Etymology Online suggests this:
twit (n.)
“foolish, stupid and ineffectual person,” 1934, British slang, popular 1950s-60s, crossed over to U.S. with British sitcoms. It probably developed from twit (v.) in the sense of “reproach,” but it may be influenced by nitwit.
@ everyone re@ twit/twat
Fascinating – I’ve always “known” twit was derived from twat. This is evidently folk knowledge and I stand corrected!
In light of this conversation, I thought I’d look up “twit” in the OED. The closest definition is almost exactly what guest@28 wrote: “A fool; a stupid or ineffectual person.” First reference was indeed 1934, E. Linklater “Magnus Merriman” xvi. 178: “He was.. a false hero who flaunted himself in fine colours when he was drunk and dwindled to a shabby twit when sober.”
That was definition 2b. The one in 2a is perhaps even more interesting and adds a twist to the definition that Ophelia@27 found: “2. a. A person given to twitting; dial. a tale-bearer. 1719 D’Urfey “Pills” (1872) VI. 241 A silly, peevish Twit. 1896 “Warwick Gloss” s.v. ‘You are a twit.'”
A “tale-bearer”. I’m assuming that means a liar, boaster, or someone who exaggerates.
I guess I’ll just spend the next two hours thumbing through this volume and enjoying more words. English is such a curious language.
For quite a while I’ve been using the following criterion of really “getting English”:
As soon as your typical use of f*** or c*** transfers you to a fairy land where the rivers flow with blood, strange fanged monsters dance under the red sky and your crippled soul is singing, you can say of yourself that you are like a native speaker – a bilingual at the least.
I still have a very, very long way to go. For me, “cunt” is just a word which starts with “c” followed by “u”, then we have “n” … yeah, you get the meaning. People say it’s bad, so probably it is. I accept their opinion on faith – Roma locuta and so on. Still, from my point of view it has no substance and no juice (no associations intended) – no magic. When I want to swear in earnest, I need to do it in my own language. What a shame!
[Apologies for this comment which is a total crap and totally off topic. Sorry, I don’t even know myself what topic it is about. At the moment I’m overloaded with work, like a dead cat from a horror movie with limbs rigid and protruding in all directions. I guess I’m using Ophelia’s space just in order to pretend that I’m still alive. Sorry!!!]
Now I want to look up “twit” in Johnson’s Dictionary…
It says ‘to reproach, to upbraid, to sneer’.
I guess ‘to twit’ (someone) is a much older usage than the noun form.
@ 22 Ophelia Benson
Yes, you did, I remember that.
No matter how much Gervais dances around the issue, the fundamental problem is still that he’s choosing to use language in such a way that “worst possible insult” and “female genitals” are the same word. Pardon us if we draw from this some conclusions about his opinions re. female genitals and the owners thereof.
I’m also weirded out by the persistent claims about “UK usage”. I live here. Everybody knows what it means. Shakespeare works it into a couple of really awful puns. It’s not a new strange word with no connotations or history.
Thanks, Silentbob, it was interesting to read that again.
SAWells I think they’re good puns! – or rather, I think the one I remember is, and I think the one I don’t remember is too because I think I liked it before forgetting it. Some of his puns were dire, but some were good.
I should perhaps specify that in the genre of puns I tend to regard “awful” and “really good” as synonymous :)