The C-word

When Justice Samuel Alito tried to defend himself against accusations that he’d flown a flag representing the insurrection over his home just days after the inauguration, he claimed that it had been his wife’s decision to do so following a heated confrontation with a neighbor during which the neighbor called her a Bad Word. Alito wrote in his prissy and petulant letter to Congress: “[he] trailed her all the way down the street and berated her in my presence using foul language, including what I believe is the vilest epithet that can be addressed to a woman.” And I imagine he then reached up the sleeve of his black polyester robe for his smelling salts while a seething Martha-Ann marched off to find her insurrection flag among what Alito implies is a Boy-Scout-jamboree-worthy collection because that will show those potty mouths.

Text messages and police records obtained by the New York Times indicate this account was untrue. The incident Alito describes took place several weeks after the flag had been flown at his house and what’s more, it wasn't a man who had used what we can assume to be the c-word, rather it was his girlfriend or so she claims, according to that same reporting.

Men vs Women

I don’t think Alito misremembered either detail, but it’s the second one I’m interested in discussing here. I will side with him for what may be the only time ever and argue that a man should never be allowed to call a woman the c-word. And I believe that this is why he is claiming it was a man who hurled the insult at his wife and not a woman, because I think he knows on some level that while women can’t control their own bodies they can and should control the usage of the word that describes the part of their bodies he’s worked very hard to control.

And I would also argue a man should not be allowed to use the term to insult a man, either. I know this universal application is a British thing—that if you live in the UK everyone is a potential c-word though everyone Is not potential wanker—but no. Ricky Gervais is just as much of a c-word for calling men c-words as he is for calling women c-words. And I’m allowed to say that because I’m a woman. With a c-word. It’s what Darin Fynn, a linguistics professor at the University of Calgary who was quoted in a story in the Washington Post about the c-word a few years ago calls “in group” versus “out group.”

According to this line of reasoning, the c-word is like the n-word: Since it’s been weaponized by the oppressor against the oppressed, it can be owned and used however those it has been weaponized against wish to. I realize there are those who disagree with me, including other women. Those who think no one should use it ever. The word has retained its status as the most highly offensive slur you could possible call someone, so offensive a Supreme Court Justice just can’t with it, for reasons that remain mysterious.

The History

While the c-word was simply a word with no ooky connotations in the original Old Norse (“kunta”), Old Frisian (that's part of the Netherlands—I didn't know, either) and Middle Low German (“kunte”) and Middle Dutch (“conte”), its associations evolved and eventually it was, by the time Captain Francis Grose’s “Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue” came out in 1785, considered "a nasty word for a nasty thing"—as taboo as Jeffrey Epstein in a middle school group chat.

Some argue that this has everything to do with misogyny, pointing out that the words that rhyme with click to describe male genitalia simply don’t have the same power and that the word that rhymes with falls to describe other parts of male genitalia is not only inoffensive but construed in the vernacular as a compliment. The monosyllabic, plosive punch of the c-word no doubt also has something to do with its ick factor.

Whatever the reasons, even Shakespeare simply referred to it without spelling it out, that was how third-rail this four-letter word became, and things haven’t changed all that much in the 400 years since. Despite Sally Field and Minnie Driver trying to claim it as a term of empowerment in the aftermath of Samantha Bee being roasted for referring to Ivanka Trump as one back in 2018. Bee later apologized; Field and Driver said the only reason to apologize is because calling someone the c-word is actually a good thing. (You can read more here, again, props to the Washington Post.)

Reclaiming Its Power

What the article did, besides introduce readers to the term "Old Frisian" was demonstrate my point that women—Samantha Bee, Sally Field, Martha-Ann Alito—are the deciders here. As a woman, you have the option to join either camp c-word or camp offended by the c-word, whereas men do not. It can make things awkward. My friend Liz says she was hugely relieved when she asked a newish friend where she pitched her female genitalia epithet tent and she said, oh, of course—camp c-word! Liz is also camp c-word. When it’s appropriate, not the way Ricky Gervais tosses it around. Its power must be reserved for the truly loathsome. Ivanka Trump. Elise Stefanik. Genocide deniers. I am also in camp c-word. In case you were wondering.

I bring this up because using the c-word is part of what led to my downfall. A screenshot of a social media post in which I used it to attack a woman who claimed all the photos of dead babies in Gaza were actually photos of ketchup-smeared dolls went viral, and that was that. The term was then snarled at me by the person doing the “that” as if I were a flasher or a pervert. I was beneath contempt. Not the holocaust denier, but the person verbally attacking the holocaust denier.

Genocide with a C

All of which makes me think about the power of language, especially now, when its force is so nuclear-fissioned by social media. Israel refuses to acknowledge it is committing genocide because "genocide" is a word that inevitably evokes the Holocaust (capital H), and it would be too shameful for Zionist Jews to confront the fact that they are now the perpetrators rather than the victims of such an atrocity.

They must believe that they are justified in massacring what many believe may wind up being well over 200,000 civilians, 70% of them women and children, none of them human shields unless that term means anyone living anywhere in Gaza. Experts won’t persuade them otherwise, but they could persuade the rest of us to speak up and demand they be held accountable for dropping to date twenty times more bombs in six months on an area half the size of New York City's five boroughs than the US dropped on Iraq in six years. Even if we risk it all to do so. Those aren’t dolls we are seeing pulled from the rubble in Gaza, they are innocent, ripped apart children, and anyone who has the balls to try to say otherwise is a cunt. See you next Tuesday.

Update: Since writing this, a friend has shared with me a clip of Billy Connolly demonstrating to comic effect how Glaswegians use the word. I'm somewhat persuaded but still say no to Ricky Gervais.