Intimate #Ivanka pic at Congress picnic embodies @WhiteHouse as #Trump private playground. Photo @alexcw @GettyImages: image via Reading The Pictures @ReadingThePix, 24 June 2017

Theo Williams at Oakland’s Lake Merritt. In 2015, a white man called police on his drum circle.: photo by Talia Herman for the Guardian, 1 June 2018

A detainee sits with a soccer ball at Otay Mesa immigration detention center in San Diego, where several hundred detainees of ICE are held awaiting hearings to decide their asylum claims. Photo @lucynicholson: image via Reuters Pictures @reutrspictures, 31 May 2018

Bee, showing a photo Trump posted of her and her son, addressed the president’s daughter directly: “You know, Ivanka, that’s a beautiful photo of you and your child, but let me just say, one mother to another, do something about your dad’s immigration practices, you feckless cunt.”

Bee added: “He listens to you. Put on something tight and low-cut and tell your father to fucking stop it"

Jake Nevins: Donald Trump urges firing of Samantha Bee for Ivanka comments, The Guardian, 1 June 2018

Hong KongñZhuhaiñMacau Bridge...epa05247573 A general view over construction works on the Hong KongñZhuhaiñMacau Bridge on Lantau island in Hong Kong, China, 07 April 2016. The construction project consists of a series of bridges and tunnels crossing part of the Pearl River Estuary that will connect Hong Kong, Macau and Zhuhai in mainland China. After several delays and cost overruns the bridge is forecast to be completed by the end of 2017 at a cost of 13.2 billion euro. EPA/JEROME FAVRE

A general view over construction works on the Hong Kong Zhuhai Macau bridge on Lantau island in Hong Kong, China. The construction project consists of a series of bridges and tunnels crossing part of the Pearl River Estuary that will connect Hong Kong, Macau and Zhuhai in mainland China: photo by Jerome Favre/EPA, 7 April 2016

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/10/The_Chocolate_Girl.jpg

La serveuse de chocolat (La belle chocolatière/The chocolate girl): Jean-Etienne Liotard (1702-1789), 1743-1745 (Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden)

Thomas Wyatt: It may be good

It may be good like it who list

..but I do dowbt who can me blame
..for oft assured yet have I myst
..and now again I fere thesame
..The wyndy worde[s] the Ies quaynt game
..of soden chaunge maketh me agast
..for dred to fall I stond not fast
Alas I tred an endles maze
..that seketh to accorde two contraries
..and hope still and nothing hase
..imprisoned in liberte[s]
..as oon unhard and and still that cries
..alwaies thursty and yet nothing I tast
..for dred to fall I stond not fast
Assured I dowbt I be not sure
..and should I trust to suche suretie
..that oft hath put the prouff in ure
..and never hath founde it trusty
..nay sir In faith it were great foly
..and yet my liff thus I do wast
..for dred to fall I stond not fast

Hase hazard, attempt
ure use

ThomasWyatt(1503-1542):It may be good like itwho list:transcription from British Library Egerton MS 2711, fol. 22 by Richard Harrier in The Canon of Sir Thomas Wyatt's Poetry,1975

http://escherdroste.math.leidenuniv.nl/images/droste.jpg

Illustration of "the nurse" on Droste cocoa tin, showing a visual form of recursion known as the Droste effect; the woman in the image is holding an object which contains a smaller image of herself holding the same object, and so forth: image by Jan (Johannes) Musset (?), c. 1903

A Vatican Swiss guard stands in the corridor of the entrance of the Bronze Door of the Apostolic Palace, at the Vatican, Thursday, April 7, 2016. The door is the main entrance to the Palace and tradition goes that when a pontiff dies the door is closed by a Swiss guard. (Alessandro Di Meo/Pool Photo via AP)

A Vatican Swiss guard stands in the corridor of the entrance of the Bronze Door of the Apostolic Palace, at the Vatican. The door is the main entrance to the Palace and tradition goes that when a pontiff dies the door is closed by a Swiss guard: photo by Alessandro Di Meo/AP, 7 April 2016

Members of Saudi security forces cross through a fire during a military exercise west of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: photo by Saudi Press Agency/Reuters, 7 April 2016

TOPSHOT - A boy from the Arab Jahalin Be...TOPSHOT - A boy from the Arab Jahalin Bedouin community stands next the rubble of his home in the village of Umm al-Kheir south of the West Bank city of Hebron on April 6, 2016 after Israeli authorities demolished six houses that they said were built without permission. / AFP PHOTO / MENAHEM KAHANAMENAHEM KAHANA/AFP/Getty Images

A boy from the Arab Jahalin Bedouin community stands next the rubble of his home in the village of Umm al-Kheir south of the West Bank city of Hebron after Israeli authorities demolished six houses that they said were built without permission: photo by Menahem Kahana/AFP, 7 April 2016

Quality control workers pick out unsuitable green, unroasted coffee beans from a conveyor belt at Dormans coffee factory in Nairobi, Kenya: photo by Carl de Souza/AFP, 7 April 2016

Afghan labourer Hamid Gul, 25, working at a brick factory on the outskirts Mazar-i-Sharif: photo by Farshad Usyan/AFP, 7 April 2016

A tailor’s shop at a market in Lashkar Gah, the capital of Afghanistan’s Helmand Province. Helmand was the deadliest province, accounting for more than half of all combat deaths in the last year.: photo by Adam Ferguson for The New York Times, 6 April 2016

Afghan boys attend class in an Islamic religious school in Lashkar Gah. The school has 990 students between the ages of 7 and 19.: photo by Adam Ferguson for The New York Times, 6 April 2016

Most of the boys at the school come from districts outside Lashkar Gah, where the Taliban controls five of Helmand Province’s 14 districts.: photo by Adam Ferguson for The New York Times, 6 April 2016

Men gather to smoke heroin at a park in Lashkar Gah: photo by Adam Ferguson for The New York Times, 6 April 2016

A farmer walks through rice fields in Qiantang village of Suichuan county...A farmer walks through rice fields in Qiantang village of Suichuan county, Jiangxi Province, China, April 6, 2016. Picture taken April 6, 2016. REUTERS/China Daily ATTENTION EDITORS - THIS PICTURE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. THIS PICTURE IS DISTRIBUTED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED BY REUTERS, AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS. CHINA OUT. NO COMMERCIAL OR EDITORIAL SALES IN CHINA.

A farmer walks through rice fields in Qiantang village of Suichuan county, Jiangxi Province, China: photo by China Daily/Reuters, 7 April 2016

A Ground crew member from the United States Navy VFA-115 squadron inspects the tail of a FA/18E Super Hornet in its hangar at the Townsville airport in Australia. Exercise Black Dagger is a field training exercise held at RAAF Base Townsville and surrounding airspace from 1 to 15 April.: photo by Ian Hitchcock, 7 April 2016

“You can sip it, you can shoot it, you can pour it over ice in a martini glass if you wanted to,” said Harley Bauer, who co-founded LIQS in 2013: photo by Krista Schlueter for The New York Times, 6 April 2016

A server, at center, offering LIQS to a crowd at New York’s Webster Hall last month: photo by Krista Schlueter for The New York Times, 6 April 2016

By 2020, the maker of LIQS shots expects to be in more than 30 markets in the United States: photo by Krista Schlueter for The New York Times, 6 April 2016

Smartphones at the ready, from left, Andrew Warren, Barron Hilton and Ezra J. William with friends at Vandal in Manhattan: photo by Deidre Schoo for The New York Times, 6 April 2016

Mr. William, Kyra Kennedy, Mr. Hilton, Gaia Matisse, Mr. Warren, Reya Benitez and Alexandre Assouline at Vandal: photo by Deidre Schoo for The New York Times, 7 April 2016

Mr. William, Kyra Kennedy, Mr. Hilton, Gaia Matisse, Mr. Warren, Reya Benitez and Alexandre Assouline at Vandal: photo by Deidre Schoo for The New York Times, 7 April 2016

From left, Ms. Benitez, the daughter of the D.J. Jellybean Benitez; Ms. Matisse, the great-great-granddaughter of Henri Matisse; and Ms. Kennedy, the daughter of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., at Vandal: photo by Deidre Schoo for The New York Times, 7 April 2016

Ms. Benitez models an outfit designed by Mr. Warren as he is interviewed by Greg Kelly and Rosanna Scotto on “Good Day New York”: photo by Deidre Schoo for The New York Times, 7 April 2016

Ms. Matisse models an Andrew Warren design on “Good Day New York”: photo by Deidre Schoo for The New York Times, 7 April 2016

Samantha Bee apologized to Ivanka Trump – and Donald Trump in turn called for TBS to fire the comedian for the ‘horrible language’.: photo by AP, 1 June 2018

Samantha Bee proves there's still one word you can't say in America: The C-word has been used from Chaucer to Trainspotting, but this week has shown for Americans it’s still the ultimate taboo: Arwa Mahdawi, The Guardian, 1 June 2018

Samantha Bee apologised for calling Ivanka Trump a “feckless cunt” on her television show. Amid widespread backlash, State Farm and Autotrader have suspended ads from Bee’s TBS show. On Friday, Donald Trump called on ABC to fire the comedian “for the horrible language used on her low-ratings show”.

Aside from the debate over whether Bee was wrong to use the word to describe the first daughter, it’s worth asking why the C-word is considered to be the ultimate expression of “horrible language”. Particularly in America, a country which elected a man president after he boasted about grabbing women “by the pussy”, is the word “cunt” so terribly shocking?

The word is notably more offensive in the US than it is in the UK. While still not common parlance in Britain, it is used far more frequently, in pop culture and casual conversation, than it is across the Atlantic. In Australia, they’re even more relaxed about it. In Australia it’s not strictly a term of opprobrium, but can be neutral or even positive. Calling someone a “good cunt” means they’re a decent person.

Part why it’s considered so much more outrageous in the US than in other English-speaking countries could be down to America’s puritanical streak. Swearing, in general, is arguably not as socially acceptable in the US as elsewhere. In 2008, for example, swearwords that had been “bleeped out” in the original version of Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares USA, were inserted back in for a British audience.

Another reason Americans are so uneasy with the word may be that it is more gendered in the US than elsewhere. In the UK and Australia, the term is unisex. See for example, Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting: “He really is a cunt ay the first order.” Or Samuel Beckett’s novel Malone Dies: “They think they can confuse me … Proper cunts whoever they are.” In America, however, it is almost exclusively associated with female sexuality. As the feminist writer Kate Millett once said, “cunt” reduces women to “the one essential … our essence … our offence.”

It is not just a profanity in America; it is a slur. Like racial or homophobic epithets, it is designed to uphold existing power structures. This means that who is wielding the word, and who it is leveled against, are immensely important. Samantha Bee and Ivanka Trump are both white women. What Bee said to Trump is very different from, say, Ted Nugent calling Hillary Clinton "a toxic cunt". (The singer described the then-first lady in those terms in an interview with Denver’s Westword magazine in 1994.)

This isn’t to say that it’s always fine for women to use the word to describe each other, of course. Some women may feel it’s almost worse than a man using the word because it is a betrayal of the “sisterhood”. However, it is different.

Over the past few decades there has been something of a feminist reclaiming of the word, which can be said to have a more egalitarian history than the word “vagina”. Vagina comes from the Latin for “sheath”, which covers a sword; it is nothing more than an enclosure for a penis. Meanwhile, the American feminist Inga Muscio argues in her 1998 book Cunt: A Declaration of Independence, that the word has always referred to the entire package of womanhood. Despite attempts to reclaim the word, however, it remains, for the most part, off limits in America.

Which isn’t to say it will always remain taboo; there is already evidence that attitudes to profanities in the US are shifting. A study published last year found that American books published between 2005 and 2008 were 28 times more likely to include swearwords than in the 50s. Further, the Trump presidency is normalizing public displays of crassness. We are growing used to headlines about “shithole countries” and “pussy-grabbing”, and becoming desensitized to claims of "pee tapes" and alleged affairs with porn stars.

Given the state of the daily news, it would be surprising if “cunt” retains its power to shock America for much longer.

Zaynab (C) who lives in Mjolnerparken, a housing estate categorized by Denmark as a 'ghetto', sits with her friends Amira and Sabrina in a park.: image via Reuters Pictures @reuterspictures, 1 June 2018

I reckon Ivanka may well be the worst of all the Trumps: tweet via Arwa Mahdawi @ArwaM, 30 May 2018

I like Samantha Bee a lot, but she is flat wrong to call Ivanka a cunt. Cunts are powerful, beautiful, nurturing and honest.: tweet via Sally Field @sally_field, 31 May 2018

28,984 replies47,124 retweets214,887 likes

All human languages, tributaries of everything you will ever say, talking cunt for YOU!

Hello. I am all human languages. I was born in the mouths of humans, and was passed along from human to human, from place to place, generation to generation, over a period of time stretching back as far as the dawning awareness that such a funny thing as time might actually exist as a thing.

A lot of people have blamed me for a lot of things. I can't defend myself in any way other than to ask, if I was born in your mouth, why do you not treat me with the same consideration you are accustomed to afford your other less problematically multiplicitous offspring?

I've been round the block, down the street, across the tracks, over the under, up the junction and aIl sorts of places you'd never go, and we both know it. I embarrass you, it's true. You can't deal with me. I make you nervous.

Man caught masturbating tells cops he’s Captain Kirk: image via New York Post @nypost, 1 June 2018

Vandal scribbles on side of New York Public Library in Bryant Park: image via New York Post @nypost, 1 June 2018

NFL teams hire cheerleaders for jobs other than performing: image via New York Post @nypost, 1 June 2018

Teacher accused of sex with suicidal teen wants texts out of trial: image via New York Post @nypost, 1 June 2018

cunt (n.)

"female intercrural foramen," or, as some 18c. writers refer to it, "the monosyllable," Middle English cunte"female genitalia," by early 14c. (in Hendyng's "Proverbs" -- ʒeve þi cunte to cunni[n]g, And crave affetir wedding), akin to Old Norse kunta, Old Frisian, Middle Dutch, and Middle Low German kunte, from Proto-Germanic *kunton, which is of uncertain origin. Some suggest a link with Latin cuneus"wedge," others to PIE root *geu-"hollow place," still others to PIE root *gwen-"woman."

The form is similar to Latin cunnus"female pudenda" (also, vulgarly, "a woman"), which is likewise of disputed origin, perhaps literally "gash, slit," from PIE *sker- (1) "to cut," or [Watkins] literally "sheath," from PIE *kut-no-, from root *(s)keu-"to conceal, hide."

Hec vulva: a cunt. Hic cunnus: idem est. [from Londesborough Illustrated Nominale, c. 1500, in "Anglo-Saxon and Old English Vocabularies," eds. Wright and Wülcker, vol. 1, 1884]

First known reference in English apparently is in a compound, Oxford street name Gropecuntlane cited from c. 1230 (and attested through late 14c.) in "Place-Names of Oxfordshire" (Gelling and Stenton, 1953), presumably a haunt of prostitutes. Used in medical writing c. 1400, but avoided in public speech since 15c.; considered obscene since 17c.

In Middle English also conte, counte, and sometimes queinte, queynte (for this, see Q). Chaucer used quaint and queynte in "Canterbury Tales" (late 14c.), and Andrew Marvell might be punning on quaint in "To His Coy Mistress" (1650).

"What eyleth yow to grucche thus and grone? Is it for ye wolde haue my queynte allone?" [Wife of Bath's Tale]

Under "MONOSYLLABLE" Farmer lists 552 synonyms from English slang and literature before launching into another 5 pages of them in French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese. A sampling: Botany Bay, chum, coffee-shop, cookie, End of the Sentimental Journey, fancy bit, Fumbler's Hall, funniment, goatmilker, heaven, hell, Itching Jenny, jelly-bag, Low Countries, nature's tufted treasure, penwiper, prick-skinner, seminary, tickle-toby, undeniable, wonderful lamp, and aphrodisaical tennis court, and, in a separate listing, Naggie. Dutch cognate de kont means "a bottom, an arse," but Dutch also has attractive poetic slang ways of expressing this part, such as liefdesgrot, literally "cave of love," and vleesroos"rose of flesh."

Alternative form cunny is attested from c. 1720 but is certainly much earlier and forced a change in the pronunciation of coney (q.v.), but it was good for a pun while coney was still the common word for "rabbit": "A pox upon your Christian cockatrices! They cry, like poulterers' wives, 'No money, no coney.'" [Philip Massinger: "The Virgin-Martyr," Act I, Scene 1, 1622]

-- Online Etymology Dictionary

Possible slang etymology of "quaint": r/eymology

At work yesterday, one of my coworkers jokingly told me to research the etymology of "quaint." All I was able to find was that it came from the Greek root gnos (source: etymonline.com). Is there a second etymology for its use as a slang term? By his demeanor, I can only assume that it's somehow sexual.

Quaint appears in Middle English, e.g. in Chaucer (spelt queynte among other ways) as a variant on cunt. In this sense it should be related to queen, going back to the Indo-European root *gwen-'woman'.

I assume that's what your coworker is referring to (though it's a bit off the beaten path).

If it's off the beaten path, it's probably the right path. I had shared that several of my students had come up with idea that "boner" comes from the Latin "oner," but that's what you get from high school students. Thank you for the illumination though!

The word "quaint" stems from the middle English word "queynte" meaning both a "small, delicate thing" and "cunt"

One of my fondest memories from university is reading the Canterbury Tales and having my professor drop this bombshell on us.

Also perhaps of interest: first known instance of the word "cunt" in English is in a compound, "Gropecuntlane", a place where prostitutes gathered.

Well aren't you the quaint one

Wonder how it came to be as offensive as it is now? Or was it just as offensive then?

Since the 17th century apparently

Hello. I am all human languages. I was born in the mouths of humans, a lot of people have blamed me for a lot of things. I can't defend myself in any way other than to ask, if I was born in your mouth, why do you not treat me with the same consideration you are accustomed to treat your other, perhaps less problematic offspring?

Examples for 'quaint' (from Cambridge English Corpus)

In both approaches earlier, now almost quaint, rhetoric of 'negotiating' identities has devolved into power/knowledge struggles across endless networks of resistances.

We find it odd, even offensive, if a boat looks like a teapot and at best quaint when a teapot looks like a boat.

His poetry is a constant exploration of things which are almost quaint.

Islanders are becoming increasingly accustomed to requests for samples of their "quaint" object dialect.

In this there was a curious tension between asking historical questions about a seemingly quaint little theatrical superstition, while nonetheless still observing it.

Overall, the place was clean, quaint and well-done.

If such strictures seem quaint in today's world, it may be because we are psychologically uncomfortable with this kind of vocabulary.

Historical linguistics is an engaging, hands-on introduction to the field, from the quaint epigraphs beginning each chapter to the well-planned exercises concluding them.

The smells and flies bothered the colonial administrators and the eyesore of the dump disturbed the picturesque view of the quaint walled city.

Indian varieties continue to employ words and expressions which might appear quaint or old-fashioned to other speakers of the language.

They looked the quaintest little or big customers.

Westerners should not regard that failure to challenge as merely an illustration of a quaint eastern culture in action, as my second example shows.

The town square is large and surrounded by a variety of interesting buildings- ivy-clad low terraced houses, quaint shops and a hotel.

They have kept a faith in rationality as a positive and constructive force that postmodernist thinkers, not altogether to their credit, will find quaint.

Olivier Douliery's powerful take on Trump from @WhiteHouse Sports and Fitness Day. President on steroids.: image via Reading The Pictures @ReadingThePix, 31 May 2018

High irony from Nashville, especially the way this frames Trump in the teleprompter. Squarely entering the evidentiary phase of his tenure. @drewangerer @GettyImages #corruption: image via Reading The Pictures @ReadingThePix, 31 May 2018

squarely clenching and grimacing as though nailed to an imaginal mast like ulysses summoned by the PussySirens while tipping the flight-deck scumbag hairpiece toward the swarming crawling slime-mold-born invertebrate murican swamp creatures in acknowlegment of common ancestry

The president may be manhandling the microphone, but news photography is not without its own volume control. #NashvilleTrumpRally @LeahMillis @reuterspictures: image via Reading The Pictures @ReadingThePix, 31 May 2018

Trump listens as beach volleyball star Misty May-Treanor speaks at the White House Sports and Fitness Day event.: photo by Susan Walsh/AP, 20 May 2018

the kid on the right's expression is priceless: image via Arwa Mahdawi @ArwaM, 30 May 2018

The shitfaced beaming tinyhanded bozo in the suit on the left's expression, medium-to-deeply evil

The grinning feckless cunt on the upper right's expression a deeper strain ofevil still no wonder kid's bug eyed lemmeouta here!

North Korean envoy arrives at the White House: image via Andrew Beatty @AndrewBeatty, 1 June 2018

Trump meeting now in Oval with North Korean general; John Kelly and Mike Pompeo also in the room: image via Michael C. Bender @MichaelCBender, 1 June 2018

WH releases pic of letter from Kim Jong Un. It’s a very big letter.: image via Jim Acosta @Acosta, 1 June 2018

NOW: Trump and Kim Yong Chol pose for pictures outside the Oval Office: image via Steven Portnoy @stevenportnoy, 1 June 2018

After announcing summit is back on, Trump just said he hasn't looked at the letter from Kim Jong Un delivered today: "I may be in for a big surprise folks.": tweet via Jim Acosta @Acosta, 1 June 2018
Trump read the letter from Kim Jong Un before leaving the WH, @PressSec says. Earlier today, he told reporters the letter was "interesting" but said he had not read it.: tweet via Jim Acosta @Acosta, 1 June 2018

Trump kids Don Jr., Tiffany, Ivanka and husband Jared heading to Camp David with POTUS. But no FLOTUS.: image via Jim Acosta @Acosta, 1 June 2018

This is why the Cav’s lost.. Don’t blame #JRSmith or #hill.. blame #lebron for this outfit #nba #cavs andwarriors: image via Davey D @mrdaveyd, 21 May 2018

Lightning illuminates the sky above the Swiss Federal Palace in Bern Photo @StefanWermuth: image via Reuters Pictures @reuterspictures, 31 May 2018

sacred