I don't cuss on the other blog or on the Good Beer Blog. And I won't cuss on the just-launched Shanghaiist. But those sites are 'serious' projects and this is just a place for rantings. If I'm pissed off, this is where I'll cuss.
I won't go into details but Air Canada and Scotiabank are conspiring to ruin my vacation. I was going to call them something foul, repeatedly, but I've calmed down a bit so I'm only going to call them something foul in condensed cockney rhyming slang (that way none of you gits in North America will be offended).
Air Canada and Scotiabank are staffed by a bunch of berks.
The word has Germanic cognates including old Norse (kunta), middle-Dutch (Kunte) and possibly High German (Kotze meaning prostitute), which all point to a pre-historic germanic ancestor kunton. A Latin word, Kuntus, meaning wedge, might also have been an influence. The word would appear to have entered the English language during the early Middle Ages; in 1230AD, both Oxford and London boasted districts called 'Gropecunte Lane', in reference to the prostitutes that worked there. The Oxford lane was later renamed the slightly less-contentious Magpie Lane, while London's version retained a sense of euphemism when it was changed to 'Threadneedle Street'. Records do not show whether it was a decision of intentional irony that eventually placed the Bank of England there.
The word has good Shakespearian usage, though even he was a little subtle. Hamlet asks whether he can lie in Ophelia's lap, 'I mean, my head upon your lap?' and then says 'Do you think I meant country matters?' and follows up with 'It is a fair thought to lie between maids' legs'. Ophelia answers non-committally to most of this. A slightly more bawdy use of the word appears in Carry On Don't Lose Your Head, one of a series of British comedy films of the 1960s, in which actress Joan Sims refers to her husband, 'The Count', deliberately pronouncing the word 'Count' with just enough room to be (mis)interpreted while still getting past the British film censors.
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