Britical

NYC

Or perhaps I should say: Hello, you old cunt! And yet I’m not sure how you feel about cunt. Although I can guess, not in the girl-on-girl action way, but in the marvellously and endlessly adaptable English person’s usage of the word itself. To wit, the myriad uses of cunt in the U.K:

Disgusted: “He’s a right cunt!”
Affectionate: “C’mere you old cunt!”
Supportive: “Wot a cunt!”
Dismissive: “That cunt Rick.”
Indulgent: “Now don’t get all cunty on me, darling.”

And few in Blighty will even bat an eyelash. Even my mother.

In America it’s oddly, but actually quite satisfyingly different, and I was reminded of this yesterday at my friend L.’s champagne soaked Sunday brunch party when, among other things, conversation lurched into the lad or Maxim mag. territory of the Donkey Punch, the Dolphin, the Jelly Doughnut et al. Although these three examples are actually all quite lacklustre in my opinion, there is one in particular that I regard as truly inspired in its puerile hilarity; The Bronco. I’m tempted to tell you to Google it but what the hell, here’s how it all goes down: you’re some sort of doughy frat guy and you’re schtupping some poor gal and unbeknownst to her you have all your mates hiding in the closet. Mid thrust said mates, right on cue, burst into the room - surprise! - to the recoiling shockhorror of the gal. Aim of the game: how long can you, the guy, keep yourself on top of the shrieking, mortified lass. Funny? Yes, absolutely, but arguably you had to be there. And perhaps you have to be English, or a certain sort of American male (most, I would argue, but maybe that’s just my friends) to appreciate it.

Relating the ins and outs of the Bronco yesterday in vaguely mixed company, I noticed all the English girls immediately shriek with laughter, their brunch splatting the creamy walls, while the bewildered Americans just sat there looking for all the world as if they’d just swallowed something rather huge and nasty by mistake but weren’t quite sure whether they were allowed to spit it out or not. For me, I am sure this particular look of vomity repulsion accompanied the recent mention of a coy, terrfiyingly icky word: ‘Lady Garden’, a term I am still wishing I’d never heard of. As they like to say here: “Euwww!!!” And so, for an American, it goes with “cunt”.

Cunt. Cunt cunt cunt! There, I said it. No biggie, as they say here. Still, all English folks in New York know very well that if you want to cause a naughty stir, create a special tiny moment at parties here, all you have to do is find a way to work that pretty word into your snotty accented conversation et voila! Not that it isn’t risky, mind you. There’s always someone who will, in their irritating uptalk, mutter exactly this: “You know, I really don’t like that word?” But fuck them, the cunt, no, you go right ahead. There is nothing more pleasurable than to jauntily wheel this one out to delight one and all. Especially at Christmas. The looks on the faces, the suspended wine glasses, the awkward pauses. Still, a warning from Miss Manners here: I do feel really quite strongly that cunt should trip prettily off the lips in as blase a way as possible. It should not seem contrived, or said deliberately to shock, but should be inserted casually in the very middle of your sentence, very by-the-by, very off the cuff.
However, if this seems too difficult (or constraining) then try it at the end of a comment but ensure the crisply vicious emphasis of the ‘c’ and ‘t’.(”Darling, you’re better off without him, he was such a perfectly tedious cunt.”) This will make you sound Terribly British, but less in the sort of dead common, flat-vowelled Mike Leigh manner discussed above, but more in a dashingly glinty-eyed poshly riding crop-wielding MerchantIvory way. Believe me, your listeners be too cowed to object, indeed they will find themselves thrilling, despite themselves, to the sound of it. As you perfect your oeuvre, they may even start begging you to say it again.

 

 

Copyright Britical 2005