Allusionist 4 Detonating the C-Bomb transcript

Hear this episode at theallusionist.org/c-bomb.

This is The Allusionist in which I, Helen Zaltzman, dive under the bonnet of language to tinker with the engine. Coming up in today's show there will be a lot - a lot - of profane language, so this is your opportunity to clear the area of young children, linguistically-fragile elders, anyone within earshot who will be offended by all the potty mouth business.

We'll limber up to the code red swearing with a little light swear word history. 2015 is the 100th anniversary of the first officially recorded instance of the word "bullshit". It was a century ago that T.S. Eliot submitted to Blast magazine his poem entitled "The Triumph of Bullshit". Now, the young T.S. probably didn't coin "bullshit" himself. Usually words have been floating around for some time before they're committed to print and thus considered official dictionary fodder. And the dictionary doesn't even cite him as its first written source. The poem was never published, but it was named in a letter that Blast's editor Wyndham Lewis wrote to Ezra Pound, explaining that while he enjoyed the "scholarly ribaldry" of "The Triumph of Bullshit", he wasn't going to print it, as he was determined to avoid words ending in "-uck", "-unt", and "-ugger". And presumably "-ullshit". So happy bullshit centenary, everyone.

OK, I wasn't kidding about the swearing in this episode, so if you want to avoid words ending in "-uck" and "-unt", this is your last chance. Ready? On with the fucking show.

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SWEAR CORRESPONDENT: I think the worst swear word is probably "cunt", which I don't like to say unless I'm really angry at a politician or something like that. 

Mine would be the word "twat", and I think that that's due to the physical connotations of the word in reference to female genitalia. 

EMMA BARNETT: It is "cunt". 

HZ: Why? 

EMMA BARNETT: Because it's one of those words, like when when you start swearing in front of your parents as you become an adult, which is quite a moment, they flinch. But I still couldn't say the word "cunt" to my mum. I just couldn't. I think the mum test is quite key.

I don't really care about bad swearwords. I don't... I mean, "cunt".

"Cocksucker". "Cunt". 

Probably "cunt". 

The worst swear word I can think of is "cunt". 

DAWN FOSTER Cunt, cunt, cunt, cunt, cunt. 

Yeah, it's gotta be "cunt", right? 

[Samples of the above clips are edited in tune to the crescendo of Beethoven's "Ode to Joy", with the following lyrics: Cunt, cunt, cunt, cunt, cunt, cunt, cunt, fuck, pissflaps. Cunt, cunt, mothercuntfucker. Cunt, cunt, cunt, cunt, cunt, cunt, shitcunt. Cunt, cunt, fuck, cunt, cunt, jizzchest. Cunt, cunt, cunt, cunt, cock, cunt, cunt, cunt, motherfucker. Cunt, cunt, fuck, twat, minge. Cunt, cunt, cunt, cunt, cocksucker. Cunt, cunt, cunt, cunt, cunt, cunt. Cunt.]

JANE GARVEY: Let's put it this way, it's no coincidence this rudest word belongs to the female of the species and not the male. 

HZ: Jane Garvey, presenter of BBC Radio Four's Woman's Hour. Opinions are Jane's own, and do not represent the BBC. 

HZ: However, "twat" means the same as "cunt", and "twat" is a much lower-level swear. Why the inconsistency? 

JANE GARVEY: I guess... 

HZ: Another four-letter word? 

JANE GARVEY: Yeah. I think "cunt", you know, it sounds a bit ruder. 

HZ: Do you think? 

JANE GARVEY: Does that make any sense? I honestly think it's that simple. 

HZ: Is that conditioning, though, or genuine cuntiness? 

JANE GARVEY: I think it is conditioning. My problem is that we have accepted for too long that that is the rudest word of all. We've let it have some special potency, which, and I simply... I mean, I actually, to be really - some people might think this is obscure - I think there's a connection to stuff like feminine hygiene. Another of my bugbears, when you go into the chemist there's this special aisle, "feminine hygiene". 

HZ: God help any man that wanders into that aisle. 

JANE GARVEY: Why not just call it "sanitary towels and tampons", or whatever you want to call it. 

HZ: "Cunt products". 

JANE GARVEY: Well, that's what they are. 

HZ: Yeah.  

JANE GARVEY: Because apparently we're smelly down there. Now I mean, listen, I'm no woman of the world, but I put it to people that men's genitalia can whiff a bit as well. 

HZ: Where's the men's hygiene aisle? 

JANE GARVEY: I'm going to invent them. "Cock wipes". That's what the world needs. Well, why not? 

HZ: "Knob sponge". 

JANE GARVEY: You said "knob sponge", I said "cock wipe". 

HZ: And so what swear would you rather see at the top of the swearing tree? 

JANE GARVEY: Well, no, if I'm angry with someone I call them a "knob". 

HZ: Quite a jolly one. 

JANE GARVEY: I say they get off lightly. No, I just think if we want to use "cunt", we should say "cunt". 

HZ: Reclaim "cunt".

Of course, cunt has been reclaimed by many before us, perhaps most famously by Eve Ensler in The Vagina Monologues. 

CLIP FROM THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES: I call it "cunt". I've reclaimed it. "Cunt". I really like it. "Cunt". Just listen to it, listen to it. "Cunt".

HZ: But reclaimed from what exactly? A couple of centuries in word purgatory, before which it seems to have been, yes, vulgar, but not particularly obscene. In fact, in the Middle Ages, many of Britain's major towns contained a street called "Gropecunt Lane". That's right. "Cunt" was sufficiently un-rude that it could be a street name, albeit the name for the street where cunt-groping took place, as back then streets were typically named after the activities that took place thereon, and "Gropecunt" was the street where sex workers ply their trade. However, since the mid-16th century, they've all been renamed "Grope Lane" or "Grape Lane" or something else more sanitised, Though I did stumble upon an e-petition to the British government calling for the reinstating of "all former Gropecunt Lanes". It had one signature. 

I'm fine with not having words like "cunt" on street signs, but I am an equal opportunity swearer, and I don't see why the word "cunt" should be kept in solitary when its gentlemanly equivalents like "dick" or "bellend" are allowed to roam fairly freely. I don't imagine, historically, someone decided on a league table for swearwords. Their differing levels of rudeness probably would've been established gradually and largely unconsciously, reflecting the preoccupations and social structures of the time. But there are recent examples of the swearing hierarchy being officially codified. I got hold of one in the form of the manual issued by ITV to television programme makers, in which swearwords and other offensive terms are sorted into Category A, or Category B, and then, within each category, according to several strata of strength. 

LEON WILSON: They are funny, the swearwords. It's just funny, and the different tiers of it. 

HZ: This is Leon Wilson, managing director of Talkback Television and executive producer of Celebrity Juice, one of the sweariest shows on British television. 

LEON WILSON: Someone's had to spend a lot time and money sitting down and categorising all these different words. 

HZ: Which is worst, "bloody", or "knobhead"? 

LEON WILSON: Yeah, I think it probably "bloody", but is it, if it's talking about... Yeah, well, I was going to say something really rude there. "Cunt"s the worst. 

HZ: OK. 

LEON WILSON: Generally that's sort of seen - and it has, you're allowed two per show. Special dispensation, we were allowed four once. 

HZ: Why do you think that there are different rules for "cunt" than for "twat", which is considered a lower-tier swear, but means the same thing? 

LEON WILSON: Because it's not about meaning of what something is. It's about... There's no real logic to it, in a sense. 

HZ: No, why is "cunt" worse than "twat"? 

LEON WILSON: It just is. 

HZ: Why? 

LEON WILSON: I think I would argue that the word "cunt" has got a particularly aggressive sound to it. 

HZ: Do you? 

LEON WILSON: "-unt", the "-unt" is quite a, "-unt" is fairly... Whereas "twat" feels more playful. 

HZ: But to me, "cunt" is quite a playful word as well. It sounds to me like the sound a squash ball makes when it's hitting against a wall. 

LEON WILSON: There was once the lawyer that asked us to bleep "twats", and he argued for it, like you, he said, "Up north, 'twat' means 'cunt', it's the same, so we should bleep it." We argued that we shouldn't, and we actually, it went really quite close to the wire. It was a new lawyer and we had to refer it up, and these things usually get referred up and eventually they came back and said didn't have to bleep "twat". 

HZ: It was good that law time was spent on this. 

LEON WILSON: Oh, a lot of time. The amount of conversations, a lot of conversations we've had, "cunt"s always had to be bleeped. And sometimes we can keep the "cu-" at the beginning, and sometimes they, it's depending on the nature of the "cunt", it's quite interesting. So there are different types of "cunt"s. So there's an aggressive "cunt", for want of a better phrase, where, [aggressively] "You fucking cunt," you know, that's a very aggressive way of doing it, but we'd have to bleep the whole word then. But if it's more of a sort of a playful "cunt" - [playfully] "Bit of a cunt, aren't you?" - that kind of way, then we're allowed a bit of the "cu-" at the beginning, because it's not seen... It's often about the way it's expressed, whether it's aggressive. And generally I would never, very, very rarely, would I ever allow an aggressive "cunt" to stay in the show, because it's very rarely justified. Most television, entertaintment television, shouldn't really have that kind of stuff in it. 

HZ: In the manual, "cunt" is right at the top of Category A, kept company only by "motherfucker". 

LEON WILSON: Originally we were only allowed, we weren't allowed to have any "motherfucker"s in the show. 

HZ: Is "motherfucker" worse than "cunt", then? 

LEON WILSON: "Motherfucker"s used to have to be bleeped as well, but they have now relented on that. They've sort of given up. 

HZ: Ah, so "motherfucker"s alright? 

LEON WILSON: Yeah, but they allow us generally four "motherfucker"s per show. But again, the way "motherfucker"s said is very important, because, weirdly, doing it in an American accent somehow makes it less rude and less offensive. 

HZ: Does that work with "cunt" as well? 

LEON WILSON: Well, I think doing "cunt" in a Cockney accent makes it less. [With accent] "You cunt." 

HZ: [With accent] "You cunt."

LEON WILSON: [With accent] "You fucking cunt." 

HZ: Yeah. 

LEON WILSON: Like, it feels more playful, in the same way, [In American accent] "You motherfucker," feels silly. Whereas if you do, [angrily] "You motherfucker," it feels much more aggressive. And actually aggression is the key part of it, in something not feeling aggressive, is the most important thing that we look at when we look at whether we should keep swear words in show. 

HZ: So British people swearing sounds more aggressive than Americans? 

LEON WILSON: I think so, yeah. 

HZ: But we've got a lot of lower-tier swears that don't really get used in America. So we've got "bollocks", "tossport", "wanker". 

LEON WILSON: Yeah. 

HZ: Is that just because we can't be trusted with the hard swears?

LEON WILSON: I think maybe we've developed a whole other layer to be able to swear in a more conversational everyday sense, to not appear rude. Yeah, I think probably. I mean, there does seem to be an awful lot of British words about, yeah, "bollocks", the testicles basically. 

HZ: Testicles itself isn't on the list, but "bollocks" is fairly low down in category B. You can include it in shows before the watershed, as long as they're not children's shows. "Balls" is considered a little stronger, appearing slightly higher in Category B on the same level as other male genital words like "knob", "prick", and "dick". Though, oddly, "cock" is in the ruder Category A, in the same classification as its female counterparts "twat", "pussy", and "gash". 

Right to the bottom of the chart are the religious swears. I know it wasn't always the case, but I find it a bit odd that religious terms are generally considerably less offensive than bodily and sexual ones. Bodies are mundane, we all have one. Personally, I don't have religion, but if I did, I think I'd be more offended by people bandying around sacred words than slang terms for something as ordinary as genitalia. 

LEON WILSON: "Oh my god" now is seen to be not offensive. People will complain, and there are people out there that will write letters every time someone says, "Oh my god," on TV, there's a couple of people that will do this, but generally though channels have come to the decision in the last 10-15 years that that's allowable. You know, generally it's not a problem. Most people in this country aren't bothered by religion, I would say the majority, but most people still are bothered by sex, and sex will always have a taboo element to it, and therefore swear words will always... Whereas I think religion isn't such a big deal anymore, isn't it? 

HZ: So we're a country of prudish heathens? 

LEON WILSON: Are you just trying to say "cunt" there? 

HZ: I think at this point in the episode, I'd just say it outright if I wanted to. Quantity really reduces the shock quality of a swear. 

LEON WILSON: We are mindful of not having too much swearing in the show, because they lose power over time. I think, in a show like Celebrity Juice, swearing is helpful in certain contexts. 

HZ: Why? 

LEON WILSON: Because swear words have power. They have impact, you know, and you've got to hold some back. I think it would be hard to make Celebrity Juice without any swearing, but I do try and limit it. And when we've got more time in the edits, we do try and take out swear words. We do  remove little... Unnecessary "fuck"s annoy me more. Like some guests will use "fuck" almost as a punctuation, just trying to get a cheap laugh, and sometimes it helps the joke because it adds emphasis, and sometimes it just feels gratuitous and they're just doing it to sort of try and get a cheap laugh. 

HZ: Are you allowed unlimited "fuck"s? 

LEON WILSON: Yeah. They've never placed a limit on the number of "fuck"s in the show, ever. That's more down to us, as a production, trying to self-censor. So the most "fuck"s we've ever had on a Celebrity Juice episode was 110. 

HZ: 110? And how long is the show? 

LEON WILSON: In 33 minutes. 

HZ: Nailing the self-censorship there. What do you think would happen if there was an edict passed tomorrow that just says, "All of our current swears are now neutral, none of them are rude anymore"? Would we have to get by not swearing at all, or would other swears... 

LEON WILSON: Other swears would come in, other swears would appear. There's always something that is taboo. Other words will always replace them, I think, yeah. At my daughter's school they obviously aren't allowed to swear, but they, my daughter's said that the words "you're a swear word" has become a swear word. So they go, "You swear word!"

HZ: So they're self-censoring? 

LEON WILSON: Yes, they self-censor, but now the teacher says, "You can't say 'swear word'," because that in itself became a swear word. So now the kids aren't even allowed to say "swear words", they'll have to think of something else. 

HZ: So it's all about intent, rather than the words themselves? 

LEON WILSON: Yeah. I think that goes back to what I was saying about aggression, whether if it's meant in aggressive way, then swearing is harder to justify. 

HZ: And are your little daughters running around going, "Swear word!" in a particularly aggressive way?

LEON WILSON: Yeah, they do, because I really found this out, one called the other one a "swear word" at the dinner table, and the other one went, "You can't say that, you can't say that!" I said, "What's going on, why you talking about 'swear word'?" And this sort of came out, and it kind of made sense of, you know, something taboo becomes, has power. 

HZ: So perhaps "cunt" isn't really inherently ruder than other words. It's just something had to be rudest. When I was at school, one teacher suggested that in the place of swear words, we all use the word "Jeff", as in the name Jeff. We didn't, and that was for the best. Did she not realise that this was the fastest way to wreak misery upon Jeffs everywhere? Maybe she did realise, and this was an elaborate revenge plot against her ex-boyfriend, Jeff?

Today's show was produced by me, Helen Zaltzman. Thanks to Leon Wilson, Jane Garvey, and all the people who contributed swears, especially my friend Tom's mum. She loves to say the word "cunt".

Your randomly selected word from the dictionary today is…

Maskinonge. Noun. Another term for 'muskellunge'.

Oh, what? What's "muskellunge"?

Muskellunge. Noun. A large pike that only occurs in the Great Lakes region of North America.

Try using it in a sentence today. 

Also try visiting me at @AllusionistShow on Facebook and Twitter, and at theallusionist.org, where, following the last episode, Stephen commented, "May I suggest the origin of 'broad' being the German 'braut'? Noun, bride, a woman taking part in a marriage." Seems plausible to me, Stephen. If I had rosettes for etymologist of the day, I'd give you one. I should get those.

In a fortnight there'll be another episode, with only Category C language and below. But until then... 

[A chorus of voices together say "cunt"]