All at C: America’s Changing Relationship with Profanity

“The C-word has been around for centuries. The Oxford English Dictionary traces it back to 13^th-century London, where you could find ‘Gropecunte Lane,’ a street name, whose modern spelling drops the extraneous e, that leaves little to the imagination. Writers such as Chaucer, Shakespeare, and the Scottish poet Robert Burns all used it in their work. But by the late 1800s, this once-common term had morphed into something truly offensive.”—Jason Page

Off the Page

By Dr. Jason Page

HOMER New York—(Hubris)—June 2025—During a drive to the airport after visiting my family in the UK, my American wife noted how my accent had subtly shifted back to my hometown’s cadences. She also reminded me that, upon returning to the United States, I would need to recalibrate my use of the C-word—either use it less freely than in Britain or, preferably, not at all.

Having grown up in a working-class neighborhood where colorful language was embraced, I’ve always felt comfortable with profanity. I never bought into the idea that swearing reflected a lack of intelligence. If anything, swearing adds flavor to conversation. The F-word works like a verbal emoji, expressing shock, joy, frustration, or anger depending on how you use it. Still, my wife’s comment caught me off guard. In just ten days abroad, not only had my accent slipped back to its roots, but my love for the C-word—forbidden in my new home for reasons of propriety—had also come flooding back.

My recent discovery of a Facebook post about our current president caused me to recall this conversation and suggested a trend I had been noticing at a subconscious level for a while now. The post featured a comment from a Scot who simply said that, in Scotland, they just call him, the President, a “cunt.” The comments section was lit up with Americans discussing the word’s loaded history and its status as perhaps the most taboo term on this side of the Atlantic. Yet the conversation around this word belied its own reality: the C-word seems to be making a comeback in American culture.

David Mack wrote about this shift in Rolling Stone last year, there are several newspaper articles that also address the trend, and you can find countless discussions about it online. But what’s behind this change in how Americans talk?

The C-word has been around for centuries. The Oxford English Dictionary traces it back to 13^th-century London, where you could find “Gropecunte Lane,” a street name, whose modern spelling drops the extraneous e, that leaves little to the imagination. Writers such as Chaucer, Shakespeare, and the Scottish poet Robert Burns all used it in their work. But by the late 1800s, this once-common term had morphed into something truly offensive.

Why the change? It probably had something to do with the rise of pornography in the Victorian era. As the word became more closely associated with sex acts rather than simply anatomy, its meaning shifted and darkened. And while both Brits and Americans now consider the C-word offensive, you’re much more likely to hear it dropped casually in a British pub than an American bar. (I played hockey in college with a guy everyone called “Andy the Cunt” because of his prickly personality—a nickname that would make most Americans recoil.)

In Britain, people know the word is shocking but often use it with a touch of humor that takes the edge off. In America, it’s more like a nuclear bomb—drop it and watch the whole conversation explode. Using it typically means you’re either furious or have completely forgotten how to behave in public.

But . . . the C-word is showing up more often in America these days, even if it still makes people wince. The word has been part and parcel of queer slang for years, where it often describes someone with confidence or attitude. Like most cultural shifts, this one started on the margins and is slowly working its way into the mainstream.

RuPaul helped bring it closer to the spotlight with the phrase “Charisma, Uniqueness, Nerve, and Talent: (C.U.N.T.)”—the qualities needed to win his eponymous Drag Race. This clever wordplay smuggles the taboo term into living rooms across America without actually saying it out loud.

Social media has further accelerated this change by connecting Americans with other cultures more than at any time since World War Two. On platforms like Twitter (now X), TikTok, and Reddit, language norms evolve more rapidly than anywhere else, often bypassing the usual cultural gatekeepers. Further, within these virtual spaces, people are likely to type things they would be highly unlikely to utter in person, including many phrases that have long since been deemed unacceptable in “polite society.”

Finally, as with other freighted terms, using the C-word represents the reclamation, for other purposes, of something that was once used to put women down. This follows the same pattern we’ve seen with other offensive terms that have been taken back by the very groups they were meant to insult.

On a personal level, I barely noticed this gradually changing attitude toward the C-word. Like continental drift, such changes remain subliminal until something significant happens. Yet when the moment arrived, I wasn’t particularly surprised.

My own relationship with the word reflects this cultural evolution. What was once an unconscious part of my British linguistic identity became, upon moving to America, something I had to consciously monitor and suppress. This linguistic code-switching mirrors the way many Americans now navigate different contexts—using language one way in private digital spaces and another in professional settings.

My experience of living between two cultures has given me a unique vantage point from which to observe these linguistic shifts. The word that caused my wife concern at the airport now occasionally pops up in mainstream American shows (The Boys on Amazon Prime is a notable example) and social media without causing the same level of shock it once did. Though still far from acceptable in polite, analog company, its sharp edges seem to be gradually softening.

Reflecting back on that conversation with my wife on our way to Heathrow, perhaps rather than simply acknowledging the wisdom of her words, I should have noted that the C-word was long due for an American revival. After all, America loves a comeback story—and the current times seem to demand this one.

Editor’s Note: As someone who spent several years in London (editing guidebooks for APA Publications), I too have found it necessary—for the duration in either country—to speak English out of two sides of my mouth, becoming, like Page, a not always successful code-shifter between US- and UK-English. For those interested in joining a road trip round naughtily-named English places, I highly recommend “Next stop, Sandyballs! Two brothers take epic ‘Rude Trip’ around Britain visiting every town, village, and street with a naughty name.”