Strong Language

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For those who were listening: here’s the high-school classmate who liked the word. Specifically, as he indicated in the grad yearbook, his favourite expression was “You silly cunt!” (said with a drawn-out intonation rising through “you silly” and falling sharply on “cunt”)

Serving Kant It wouldn’t be the annual Eurovision Song Contest without some sort of controversy. Most years the controversy is political in nature. The 2025 contest was no different in this regard, but in addit…

Oh, and Dave Wilton on Maltese singing—surely it cunt be stronglang.wordpress.com/2025/05/23/s...

If anycunt says it, will everycunt accept it? This is a guest post by Gary Thoms and E. Jamieson. Gary Thoms is from Glasgow, and is an Assistant Professor at New York University. E Jamieson is a Scot from outside the central belt, and is a po…

Gary Thoms and E. Jamieson guest in to talk about why anycunt would use "anycunt" and why everycunt should understand it stronglang.wordpress.com/2018/12/18/i...

Susie Dent’s Guide to Swearing is top bollocks Fuck, shit, bollocks, twat, bloody, and cunt are not the seven words you can never say on television – they’re six words that Susie Dent has said on television. Susie Dent’s Guide to Swearing, a ne…

In @stancarey.bsky.social's review of Susie Dent's book and posted some of her videos, the only one that requires the viewer to go watch it on YouTube and click a gatekeeping button is the one for "cunt" stronglang.wordpress.com/2017/07/25/s...

Making friends with “cunt” This is a guest post by Michael Adams, Professor of English at Indiana University Bloomington, past president of the Dictionary Society of North America, and author of several books on language. Mi…

Michael Adams on some friendly cunts: stronglang.wordpress.com/2016/10/28/m...

What gives ‘cunt’ its offensive power? The following is a guest post by Kate Warwick.  * * * It’s definitely a hand grenade of a word, especially in speech. But is it just the literal meaning of cunt which makes it so offensive? Linguis…

Some resources on the topic from Strong Language over the years:

Kate Warwick on why "cunt" packs a punch stronglang.wordpress.com/2015/02/06/w...

Good morning Calgary! For you sickos in the West who are already awake, @sesquiotic.bsky.social is scheduled to be on QR radio at 7:35 AM talking about the resurgent popularity of the word "cunt" without ever actually saying the word

“Don’t show your mother your penis”: Swears in a 19th-century Tibetan and Newar phrasebook It’s always entertaining to look up rude words in a dictionary. This activity can tell you something about the editor, and perhaps the intended audience. A nineteenth century single-copy hand…

FTA: @superlinguo.bsky.social finds a Tibetan phrasebook with important life advice stronglang.wordpress.com/2016/02/23/d...

John Davidson Gives First Interview and Explains Tourette’s Tics After Shouting N-Word and Other Slurs at BAFTAs: ‘I Felt a Wave of Shame’ (EXCLUSIVE) John Davidson's explains Tourette's tics and the BAFTA N-word incident in his first exclusive interview with Variety.

"Tourette's can make my body or voice do things I don't mean, and sometimes those tics land on the worst possible words." variety.com/2026/film/aw... #BAFTAs

I am not kidding bsky.app/profile/numb...

The Economist once put a picture of camels literally fucking on the cover, I thought nothing could be worse. Today Wired proved me wrong.

Winds Suck Dicks

someone waited their ENTIRE LIFE to write that headline...

Explicit Bowie If you look at the whole David Bowie collection in iTunes, you’ll see only one album that has the boxed E on it: EXPLICIT. (Lock up your daughters!) That album is his last, ★. And if you look…

It's a decade since David Bowie departed, and a decade since @sesquiotic.bsky.social posted this inventory of all his sweary songs, with videos stronglang.wordpress.com/2016/02/15/e...

"He did have a nickname, but it's a bit rude for me to tell you. Well, I'll tell you, but you're not gonna be able to air it. Do you want me to tell you?"

We won't spoil the surprise.

NJ lawmakers introduce the FUCK ICE Act.

The bill "permits civil action for violations of US Constitution related to immigration enforcement."

More new "Fucks" $65(Cdn) each (including postage.) Titles & descriptions in alt-text. DM if interested (more to come.)

Great line on Morning Ireland (It Says In The Papers) this morning - “officials from his time in the Northern Ireland Office, when asked to describe Mandelson, used one-word descriptions starting with the letters w, f and even c”. @rteradio1.bsky.social

#MandelsonEpstein #Mandelson

It's a great opinion by Judge Ana Reyes (and sound on the law—Noem was too busy posting to follow even the basics of the statute). Worth a read, and don't skip the footnotes.

“I agreed the fuck out of it” Last year, in my post on the line from The Martian, “I’m going to have to science the shit out of this,” I took a look at the more general pattern of “VERB the TABOO TERM ou…

FTA: @benzimmer.bsky.social is going to verb the taboo term out of this one stronglang.wordpress.com/2016/02/11/i...

January linkstack New newsletters, a new print magazine (!), the AI naming crisis, and more.

January links! Credits: @mashedradish.bsky.social @marthabarnette.bsky.social @paperairplane.pub @stancarey.bsky.social @stronglang.bsky.social @grammargirl.bsky.social & more! fritinancy.substack.com/p/january-li...

Family’s Euphemism For Genitals Really Weird

Family’s Euphemism For Genitals Really Weird https://theonion.com/family-s-euphemism-for-genitals-really-weird-1819575047/

My Latin speaking peeps: @shadowspar.bsky.social was looking for a good Latin equivalent of "fuck around, find out" and this was my attempt, but I know it's not perfect; who's got better?

Oh, shit! Shitting shit it! 14:06 S01E03 Art October 8 1999

Fuckin' NYT robbin' me of my royalties

Espionage Novels That Give a Fuck about Profanity A couple of years ago, people I know were talking about the Apple TV series Slow Horses, the television version of Mick Herron’s Slough House novels. I love espionage novels, and I like espionage t…

Check out the Strong Language blog posts about the Slow Horses' major-league sweariness. He delves into Herron's books, but the TV show does a pretty great job of bringing the books to life, including that aspect.
stronglang.wordpress.com/2025/07/09/e... with two other posts after this one.

Lambrini Girls feat. Peaches - Cuntology 101 (Peaches Remix) YouTube video by Lambrini Girls

Here's one for the @stronglang.bsky.social mixtape www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7Em...

Another freaking f-word I never fully adopted freaking as an intensifier, euphemistic for fucking, partly because I swear fairly freely, and maybe also because fecking was available in my Irish English dialect. But I like…

Can you freaking believe that "freaking" is almost 100 years old? @stancarey.bsky.social salutes a popular euphemism:
stronglang.wordpress.com/2026/01/22/a... #swearing

Back in my young and foolish ESOL teaching days, I developed a lesson on the grammar and semantics of swearing. I still think it was probably the most useful lesson I taught but oddly enough I only managed to deliver it once