I’m one of those adults that is delightfully horrified whenever people use the c-word around me. I rarely, if ever, use the word myself so it’s almost like a naughty and illegal treat when it pops up in conversation.
I can remember with frightening accuracy the day my mother told me about the c-word. I was about 6 at the time and attending a pretty rough primary school. Swear words were bandied about fairly casually on the playground so I was familiar with the usual suspects. I knew ‘fuck’ was pretty bad although at that stage I thought ‘fuck’ meant ‘punch’, which ensured some pretty hilarious playground banter when I kept offering to pleasure everyone sexually when I was really offering to beat the shit out of them. Grade one was pretty confusing. So I turned to my mother for advice.
I was hanging out in her bathroom sniffing this amazing tub of Neutrimedics apricot face oil, which was like crack for a 6-year-old and I casually asked my mum what the worst swear word is. Like ever in the history of the world. I planned to wow the boys on the playground the next day with my superior oral filth. She calmly replied ‘Well the f-word is pretty bad but the c-word is worse. Do you know the c-word? It has four letters and is waaaaay worse than the f-word. So don’t you ever say it because it’s horrible.‘
Did I know the c-word? Shit yes, I knew the c-word but until this moment I was unaware of the power it held. I felt dangerous in possesion of this new found knowledge. I strutted across the playground the next morning armed and ready for the verbal victory of a life time. One of the boys shouted ‘Hey Carly! Wanna fuck me?‘ followed by raucous laughter. I gave him a smug look and retorted with the utmost confidence ‘No! Because you… are CRAP!‘ and I strutted away leaving my burn victims in my wake. Take that motherfuckers.
It was a few months later that I asked my mum what c*nt means. She was slightly shocked that I didn’t know and also quite shocked that her 6-year-old just casually dropped the c-bomb at her. I’d seemed very knowledgable when we’d had our previous c*nt coversation so naturally she was a little confused. She gently asked me what I thought the four letter c-word was. I was like, bitch please. You are so not tricking me into saying it. She suggested that I spell it. C-R-A-P. Then it happened. That whisper of a smile that sped across her face and disappeared just as quickly. That smile that makes you blithely aware that you’ve fucked up big time and your family is going to be laughing about this well into your adult life.
And that’s how I learned that the four letter c-word is not ‘crap’. Somewhere along the way I also learned that ‘fuck’ does not mean ‘punch’. The world made heaps more sense after these revelations.
When did you first discover swearing? Do you remember the first time you used a swear word? Or figured out what they meant?
22 Comments
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Having a dad in the armed forces (enlisted, not officer) seems to have made me an avid swearer at a very young age. I remember my dad casually referring to a certain soap opera as ‘a c*nty practice’, so I was well aware of that one.
Now I’m afraid swearing is like verbal punctuation to me…-
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My dad is a tradesmen but never ever swore at home. I was horrified when I was 18 and saw him on site swearing on the phone like a trooper.
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I was surrounded by swearing from both family and movies so I can’t remember when I first discovered it.
I must have sworn a lot when I was little because I remember being super paranoid that my mum had somehow put a recording device in the pocket of my school shirt and was recording my swears to get me into trouble. I’d constantly check my pocket to make sure it wasn’t there. Hows that for a guilty imagination
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That’s such a little Azza thing to think.
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When I was six, my mother was walking myself and a school friend home, and said school friend was complaining about boys in the playground calling her a bitch. Mum had to explain that one to me. I think ‘fuck’ came along when I was 7 and one of the girls at school scrawled it into one of my notebooks, then quickly scratched it out again. I’m not sure I knew what it meant, just that it was a bad word. I only learnt how bad when I wrote it down for my five year old sister, and my sister screwed up the paper and threw it at my mum. It was quite a few years before I dared say/write it again.
It was actually my sister who introduced me to the c-bomb – she casually uttered it in front of our babysitter when she was 6, the babysitter burst out laughing but then rapidly said ‘never say that’, and I pretended to know it was a big deal even though I didn’t have a clue.
I have a five year old son now and he has dropped the f-bomb three times – happily each time just repeating it after hearing someone else say it, never using it independently! But I’m waiting for the day he drops the c-word as that’s how I tend to refer to certain politicians and other individuals I take a strong dislike to. Or, you know, my bestfriends when they get an awesome haircut.
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Ah that terrifies me! I’m the naughty aunty who always swears in front of my niece. My brother is going to totally blame me for her potty mouth.
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I remember being about 5 in a little playhouse that my friend’s dad built. We decided to say all the bad words we had heard. Apparently my sister overheard me and asked me to admit that I had been swearing all afternoon. She promised she wouldn’t tell my mom. I admitted the truth. She then turned around and told my mom and I promptly had my mouth washed out with soap.
As for the C word, I didn’t even know what that meant until bout 3 years ago (I’m 23)! Haha.
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I can remember praciting swearing alone in my room. Such a loser.
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Wow, amazed that little teensy kids are so rude to each other! Haha
I think it was around Year 6 and 7 that we begun throwing around the f-word in school, and I was about 11 when my Mum explained to my brother what it actually meant. I said, “What? You don’t know what it means?! Psssh.” but eagerly listened in.The c-word was introduced to me by my somewhat arrogant stepbrother, and he handed me a dictionary and told me to find the ‘rudest word in the English language’. He laughed when I said it was the f-word, and replied that it begun with a ‘c’. That stumped me for ages. I probably asked someone else, and I definitely haven’t used it more than twenty times in my life.
I like to think of the f-word as a tool reserved for extreme emphasis – we do need it in our vocab sometimes, but only amongst the right crowd. The c-word is just not my cup of tea, and I cringe whenever it’s said, subtly judging people on their values and class. How funny. It’s just a word.-
Yeah but it’s the intention behind it that makes it bad. That’s why people use it.
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My dad was a primary school teacher when I was growing up and he used to teach at some of the very rough schools. Quite often he would come home and tell my mother how a kid had called him a “f*cking c*nt” that day and I could tell that it was a very bad, naughty word indeed judging from how furious he was about it! So I decided that it was the baddest word ever and must therefore ALWAYS be used as an insult. However, it was not until much later on in highschool that I actually ever used the word and then started using it…
These days I use the “c-word” in heated conversation or when I really just want to be naughty and shocking by dropping it somewhere I shouldn’t be. Not very good, I know! No one else I know even swears at all, so you can imagine their horror when this little ditty pops up in a conversation >:P
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And you’re such a lady I’m sure it would be a very big surprise!
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I was about six when I heard a group of boys saying the word ‘shit’ in the playground. I filed it away in my memory bank for future use. About two weeks later, I fell backwards off the couch while watching Hey Hey, It’s Saturday and uttered a very loud “SHIT!” My mother stood, agape, and told me never to use that word again.
One of my best friends casually uses the c-bomb about forty times a day. When I first met her, I was shocked, but the novelty quickly wore off. I use that word a lot when I’m with her, but not very often otherwise. (Although I do sometimes utter the word ‘cunting’ when I’m really mad. As in- “you cunting bastard of a thing!”)
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Mr Smaggle and I have started using in an endearing way but we have to stop because it’s not funny. 🙂
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When I was 10 I remember distinctly driving along Punt Road (in Melbourne) with my Dad and as we were driving near the MCG he was telling me about a football player that had been suspended.
When I asked why my Dad said it was because the player in question called another player the worst word in the world.
“Fuck?” I asked. “No” said my Dad, “worse than that”.
“What could be worse than fuck?” I asked.
“He called him a c-u-n-t” my Dad spelled out. Boom.-
That’s so cute. Like spelling it makes it better.
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‘C*nt conversations’ sounds like a nice name for some neo-feminist blog of the aggressive variety.
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Haha, I still remember calling my Dad a prick when I was 11. I thought ‘prick’ was an affectionate term for someone who was being adorably annoying and funny, so I thought I’d try it out when Dad was playing around with us. Poor Dad was horrified. Mum went off her head. Oops.
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At lunch when I was in first grade me and my friends sat together and we
Would say new bad words we heard. I knew what f*ck sh*t as* and bitc* meant
By the time I was six. I learned cunt in fourth grade. -
I don’t understand why you censored cunt in your post, but had it in the picture at the top. Unless you didn’t censor cunt, and that is actually a different word in which case, I am blown away that I don’t know what the worst swear word is ever. Because I swear lots. And lots.
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Well me and my family are strong catholics but sad to say i am not. Lets see the first time that i can remember saying a cuss word was when i was about four and we were in the car and my older sister said lets blow this popsicle stand and i said what the h**l does that mean. I was introduced to the f word when i was nine while i was watching a movie with my dad at first i could not understand what the guy said i thought i heard buck like wheres my bucking truck ha but due to the fact that my dad turned it off right away i knew it was the f word i stayed up all night trying to think what it might mean then i learned it by myself. And i just learned what the c word is thanks to you guys! I sit in the bathroom and watch porn on my nook and watch girls get f*cked thats how i learned what the f word meant. When i am alone i cuss alot i am doing it less now that i am ten i have a sad life can someone help me to stop doing what i am doing?
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Cunt is pretty bad here in the states but the UK its usage is prevalent so it wouldn’t be shocking to the British. It really depends on what nation and what society you are in. Fuck is pretty bad. Not very bad but just highly bad.
