So, I last night I was watching a theatrical production of Medea, the Euripedean tragedy, whose cunning female protagonist is, um, "difficult" in that misogynistic Greek tragedy kinda way (cf Klytemnestra).  "Difficult" would be an obvious euphemism for the word my friend used to describe her (I can’t write it online due to bashfulness, but it has 4 letters, starts with a C, and ends with a T).  

Suddenly, I thought, "Cunning and c*nt (or cunnilingus) HAVE to have the same PIE root, and misogyny might be related, too!"  Well, I was very disappointed, after consulting my AHD appendices, to discover that these terms are thought to have four  :’( completely different PIE roots.  

According to the AHD (either online or my hard copy):

cunning
ADJECTIVE:      1. Marked by or given to artful subtlety and deceptiveness. 2. Executed with or exhibiting ingenuity. 3. Delicately pleasing; pretty or cute: a cunning pet.
NOUN:      1. Skill in deception; guile. 2. Skill or adeptness in execution or performance; dexterity.
ETYMOLOGY:      Middle English, present participle of connen, to know, from Old English cunnan. See gn[sup]o[/sup]- in Appendix I.

c*nt
NOUN:      Vulgar Slang 1. The female genital organs. 2. Sexual intercourse with a woman. 3a. Offensive Used as a disparaging term for a woman. b. Used as a disparaging term for a person one dislikes or finds extremely disagreeable.
ETYMOLOGY:      Middle English cunte. See ku- in Appendix I.

cunnilingus
NOUN:      Oral stimulation of the clitoris or vulva.
ETYMOLOGY:      New Latin, from Latin, he who licks the vulva : cunnus, vulva; see (s)keu- in Appendix I + lingere, to lick; see leigh- in Appendix I.

-gyny
SUFFIX:      1. The state or condition of having a specified number of women or females: monogyny. 2a. The condition of being situated in a specified place with respect to female plant organs: epigyny. b. The condition of having a specified number or kind of female plant organs: protogyny.
ETYMOLOGY:      From Greek gune, woman. See g[sup]w[/sup]en- in Appendix I.

Then, also from AHD Appendix:

gno-   To know. Oldest form *[sup]g[/sup]ne[sup]schwa[/sup][sub]3[/sub]-, colored to *[sup]g[/sup]no[sup]schwa[/sup] [sub]3[/sub]-, contracted to *gn[sup]o[/sup]- (becoming *gn[sup]o[/sup]- in centum languages).

ku-    Hypothetical base of a variety of conceivable related Germanic words meaning "a hollow space or place, an enclosing object, a round object, a lump," and some other derivative denotations.

(s)keu-   To cover, conceal. Zero-grade form *(s)ku-. Variant *(s)keu[sup]schwa[/sup]-, zero-grade form *(s)ku[sup]schwa[/sup]-, contracted to *(s)k[sup]u[/sup]-.

g[sup]w[/sup]en-  Woman. 1. Suffixed form *g[sup]w[/sup]en-[sup]a[/sup]-.

(nb: my online OED is way to slow to use right now, so I am not sure what it might say  ??? )

So maybe -gyny is a lost cause and just coincidentally similar in form (I thought I could invoke the g—> c evolutionary switcheroo), but I have a hard time believing that cunning and the other two are not related.  And I have a VERY hard time believing that c*nt and cunnilingus are not related.  

Anyway, my question is this: how etched in stone are these "authoritative" sources and is it ever wise for a 26-year-old non-linguist (read: me) to say, "I just don’t buy the opinion of these revered experts"?

Any advice, comments, jeers, explanations, etc. are welcome.

David

smitdl00:

Anyway, my question is this: how etched in stone are these "authoritative" sources and is it ever wise for a 26-year-old non-linguist (read: me) to say, "I just don’t buy the opinion of these revered experts"?

You have to be one (an expert, revered) in order to object to anything they say on an official level.  They (revered experts) tend to be very conservative, and unwilling to go out on a limb for a mere superficial or reasonable association or resemblence.  They can laugh you right out of a job in those circles.  I am sure that this is why there are so many "unattesteds" and "origin obscures" in all the dictionaries.  It doesn’t mean that there might not be a relationship, but that there is no evidence to prove that there is a connection.

I don’t think these words for (women and) female parts are totally unrelated.  It is just that tracing them back before the reconstituted Proto-Indo-European is quite, if only nearly, impossible.

I do not think that "cunning" is at all related to these, but rather to words for "to know" (ken, gnosis, etc.)

Nice point, David!  I love the old Greek plays, by the way!

Sitran

thanks, sitran.  

i guess i won’t be applying for Dr. L’s job any time soon!    but i can see that this problem of "convergent evolution," as we like to call it in the biological sciences, will continue to give me trouble.  if women weren’t so darn sly, i wouldn’t have had this confusion!!!

David

if women weren’t so darn sly

And so well disguised to boot!

Sitran

Dear David,

I was very pleased and amused by your post, but I think you’re not quite right.

I don’t consider myself as bearing the slightest resemblance to an "expert", and I’m also even younger than you (I’m 24). Nevertheless, I rarely doubt or disapprove what IE comparative studies have to tell us -not because I’m too obedient and respectful to authoritative figures, but simply because the studies in question are based on nearly 200 years of research, on literally hundreds of previous researchers that have compared large textual corpora word by word. This is a kind of science, and the main principle there is the Newtonesque "If I have seen further, that is by standing on the shoulders of giants". and when such a researcher laughs at our mere guesses based on superficial associations, I make allowance for that cause he has a full right to do it.

I wouldn’t say, though, that a relation between c*nt and Latin cunnus from which cunnilingus comes is absolutely impossible… probably they both come fro the same IE root identified as *ku- by your dictionary.      

i know, i know, you’re right.  but for that split second of erroneous insight, i was on top of the linguistic world!  ;D but, in the end, i couldn’t agree more with your newtonian principle.  i truly admire the work they have done (and continue to do); if i understood more, it might even be more fascinating!    

Thanks for the post!

David

David was just trying to make a connection between cunning and "knowing someone in the Biblical sense"...

-Tim

hey, leave my namesake out of this.  he can’t defend himself.  besides, he wasn’t soooo bad.  (except for that whole send-your-lover’s-hubby-out-to-war-to-get-killed thing).  katy is so difficult to please.  

David

he’s not the only David to do that

Probably not, but David’s original post is perfectly valid. Considering the sensitive nature of the material, I think he did a good job of keeping things linguistic rather than…um…cunnilinguistic. I also think Bombichka has a great point when she directs our attention to the *ku root, though Sitran is probably right when he links "cunning" with "ken" and "kennen."

Let’s not allow the debate to fizzle out because of some Victorian niceties, even though we’re discussing probably the most taboo word in the English lexicon.

- PW

PW, thanks for the backup…

Let’s not allow the debate to fizzle out because of some Victorian niceties, even though we’re discussing probably the most taboo word in the English lexicon.

as my friends back in my hometown, Hoover, AL would say, "I ain’t skeert."

i feel like i’m back in my catholic grammar school, looking up bad words in the unabridged dictionary on that podium where they always seem to be.  somehow, the book was always opened to a page with the headwords "fry" and "fulgurate."  boy, i guess a lot of my third grade classmates didn’t know what fulgurate meant.  idiots.
;D

David

I also think Bombichka has a great point when she directs…

not that it’s so important, but I thought it would be appropriate for me to clarify that I’m male.

Let’s not allow the debate to fizzle out because of some Victorian niceties, even though we’re discussing probably the most taboo word in the English lexicon.

as a professor  in my University once put it, "for a linguist, there is no such thing as a four-letter word". ;D

i feel like i’m back in my catholic grammar school, looking up bad words in the unabridged dictionary on that podium where they always seem to be.  somehow, the book was always opened to a page with the headwords "fry" and "fulgurate."

too bad that most of Bulgarian academic linguists don’t bear in mind the aforementioned principle and tend to somehow miss our equivalents for f*ck c*nt, d*ck and other nice words when editing a dictionary. I’ve always thought it’s a shame (yeah, in the literal sense, too) to do so.

P.S. is c*unt really the most offensive "dirty" word in English, even more than the f-word?    
 

P.S. is c*unt really the most offensive "dirty" word in English, even more than the f-word?

the c-word, i would say, is significantly more offensive/taboo than any of its competitors.  it’s the only word i know of that regularly draws cringes and wide-eyed expressions of amazement or disapproval.  (and it seems especially distasteful to women.)  almost all other words can be said without giving them a second thought.  of course, all of this depends on the company you keep.  perhaps i should get some new friends!

David

[quote author=smitdl00 link=board=etymology;num=1076361275;start=0#14 date=02/12/04 at 08:47:58]

the c-word, i would say, is significantly more offensive/taboo than any of its competitors.  it’s the only word i know of that regularly draws cringes and wide-eyed expressions of amazement or disapproval.  (and it seems especially distasteful to women.)  almost all other words can be said without giving them a second thought.  of course, all of this depends on the company you keep.  perhaps i should get some new friends!

David

Perhaps so!

Both words are equally egregious in the wrong company.  I have seen the c-word on a t-shirt for sale before ("What do I know?  I’m just a dumb c- . . . ."), but the person wearing one would most likely be one.  

//Larry
Whose father never talked in his sleep; he swore!

at the risk of re-inflammation of this issue:

Katy
and I’m not hard to please, I’m impossible to please!

i was reading the Lysistrata by Aristophanes, and couldn’t believe my eyes when i came across this old favorite…

oute sun panôlethroisin out’ aneu panôlethrôn

ie, "You can’t live with ‘em; you can’t live without ‘em!"

it’s amazing how far back some of our taken-for-granted sayings go.

david