You know how people keep telling us – over and over, with an air of patient “everybody knows this” superior wisdom – that “cunt” is not a sexist epithet in the UK? It’s used solely for men, so much so that it would sound weird to call a woman it? That it’s lost its original meaning i.e. female genitalia?
As in this comment by “Minow” on January 8 for instance:
What offensive word? “Cunt” obviously. The others wouldn’t be “offensive” enough to be worth mentioning.
No it was ‘bitch’ according to press reports. Nimmo is British and it is quite rare in Britain to use ‘cunt’ for a woman, it sounds a bit peculiar, like calling a woman a ‘cock’. This might be changing as we Americanize in that way but I think it is still generally true. ‘Cunts’ have to be blokes, usually hard-arses in a bad way.
I call Rachel Bailey to the stand.
Scott and Bailey, Season 3 episode 5. Spoiler alert – a suspect trips up when Rachel is interviewing him, and he says something that convicts him. She is telling the roomful of detectives what happened, and concludes with “…and that’s when he called me a – ” pause “…rhymes with stunt, brunt, front” and everyone laughs.
It’s at 42:25 in case anyone wants to check my arithmetic.