I think that it has more layers than just a vulgar term for a womanly body part. I was just curious.
https://stronglang.wordpress.com/2015/02/06/what-gives-****-its-offensive-power/
What gives ‘****’ its offensive power?
February 6, 2015Stan Carey
The following is a guest post by Kate Warwick.
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It’s definitely a hand grenade of a word, especially in speech. But is it just the literal meaning of **** which makes it so offensive? Linguistically, there are other elements of the word which contribute to its force: connotative layers of meaning, its sound and the impact on the hearer.
From the 11th century’s rather off-puttingly named Godwin Clawecunte[1] to the 21st century’s complete ****, the word has clearly undergone some meaning extension; from literal or denotative to abusive or connotative. It’s notoriously difficult to pinpoint change, of course, but the development of connotative meaning can be seen in Pepys’s 17th century use to mean a sexually active women, ‘he hath to sell such a pouder as should make all the cunts in town run after him’.[2] Later, in Manning’s First World War novel, his soldiers even refer to a man as a ****, ‘A bloody **** like you’s sufficient to demoralise a whole ******’ army corps’.[3]
So by the early 20th century **** has acquired a layer of hatred in its meaning. Without going into detail about potential social causes, how did this happen? There are plenty of other words, like ****, which literally mean the same thing, but don’t have the sense of ‘despised, unpleasant, or annoying place, thing, or task’.[4]
One clue may be in Grose’s dictionary, The Vulgar Tongue, which defines **** as ‘a nasty name for a nasty thing’[5] and then one of the Oxford English Dictionary’s definitions of nasty is, ‘sexual intercourse. Now esp. in to do the nasty and variants’. It is even argued that this shift may already be present in Chaucer’s notorious Miller’s Tale couplet:
‘As clerkes ben ful subtile and ful queynte;
And prively he caughte hir by the queynte,’[6]
Here he neatly pairs the crafty and plotting meaning of queynte, describing the devious clerk as ‘ful subtile and ful queynte’, with its literal counterpart. Perhaps these uses are reflecting the direction of meaning extension, which is starting to make poor Godwin Clawecunte’s name sound more than just unfortunate.
Gradually, via Chaucer, Grose and Manning and presumably in combination with other non-linguistic factors, the nasty and devious layers of meaning in **** have become more dominant.
This connotative use is particularly common in speech (as seen in the British National Corpus), so perhaps sound also contributes to the word’s force? We know from Pinker that ‘imprecations tend to use sounds that are perceived as quick and harsh’.[7] They tend to be ‘monosyllables or trochees, and contain short vowels and stop consonants, especially k and g: ****, ****, prick…’,[8] and [kʌnt] certainly reflects these trends.
Beginning with a strong voiceless velar plosive [k], it includes a short back vowel [ʌ] (probably nasalised), then moves into an alveolar nasal [n] and a final voiceless alveolar plosive [t], abruptly halting the vowel. It could be that this phonetic structure, an explosive beginning, short vowel and abrupt ending, make **** more likely to be offensive than its near synonyms. For example, **** [twæt] also exhibits short vowels, but the voiced labial-velar approximate [w] softens the first [t], perhaps reducing its impact. However, the phonetics of a word like **** ought to make it more offensive than ****. [kɒk] has the typical phonetic characteristics of a swear word, what Crystal describes as ‘the really important sounds . . . the velar consonants, especially the voiceless ones, especially when these are in final position’.[9] It may be that the many innocent homonyms reduce its force. But that the equally phonetically short **** has less of an impact than **** also brings us back to meaning; it’s the combination of nastiness with brutishly short sounds that gives **** its power.
Maybe there’s another element, linked to sound, which contributes to the outrage? Swearing packs an emotional punch because, once we have learnt the word and established Pinker’s ‘pairing of certain meanings and sounds’,[10] we can’t shut our ears to it. **** causes an extreme emotional reaction partly because it invokes an involuntary response in the hearer. Having heard the sound, the brain automatically makes the connection; the phonological form unlocking the layers of meaning. As Bowers et al.[11] argue, verbal conditioning, the result of phonology plus semantic content, determines our emotional response to swearing.
There’s one more possibility behind the force of ****; the phonetic shape not only gives us a word that’s shocking to hear, but importantly for some, also satisfying to say. Sculptor Morag Myerscough acknowledged this after she was given the letter C as part of the British Library’s exhibition 26 Letters: Illuminating the Alphabet. She created a sculpture entitled Has Anyone Seen Mike Hunt in pink neon. In justifying her choice of word, she says, ‘I was brought up not to swear, but I love swearing. I love the shape of the words coming out of my mouth.’[12]
So perhaps **** is shocking not just because of the meanings it has acquired over the centuries, but because of how this combines with the sound of the word and the physical satisfaction of lobbing this verbal hand grenade.
