Dirty Words
» Heterogeneous
Until the renaissance the word cunt produced no more shock than it should now. At least so says Mark Morton author of Dirty Words:
In fact: "Church records dating back to the eleventh century also reveal surnames that incorporate the word cunt such as Bele Wydecunte, Godwin Clawcunte and Robert Clevecunt. Presumably, these individuals - or their ancestors - were named after some anatomical abnormality or behavioural tendency."
Comments
Of course American society has all sorts of issues around sex. But Mark Morton’s surname origin theory is about the silliest I’ve ever heard. (My apologies, Mark)
Posted by: sybilla | October 7, 2005 11:58 AM
I love this site! It’s very cool and very open. I hope to get support from everyone here. I am building an online mag. with topics like: sex and fashion. I hope to get you guys involved and I’m looking for sexy people from all walks of life from writers to models… no one will be judged.
Posted by: jackfrost | October 7, 2005 9:26 PM
Actually, if you look at any number of studies of English surnames, you’ll see that many that came into existence in the early Middle Ages are quite “explicit.” They may seem odd to us now (and most of them have, in fact, dropped out of existence in the intervening centuries, but it would be a mistake to say that something that seems silly or strange to us now was implausible in another time and era. Cultural sensibilities vary a lot from place to place and century to century.
Posted by: Jael Perdue | June 22, 2006 8:25 AM