Linguistics expert explains why the c-word 'still has the ability to shock'

RNZ News

15-05-2025

Workplace Relations Minister Brooke van Velden has dropped the c-bomb in Parliament in protest over the slur being directed at her and other female ministers in a newspaper column.
Photo:
Parliament TV
A sweary few days in politics has raised questions about the use of a particular profanity, the c-word.
Workplace Relations Minister
Brooke van Velden
dropped the verbal grenade in Parliament in protest over the slur being directed at her and other female ministers in a newspaper column about rushed changes to pay equity laws.
It is thought to be the first time the c-word has been recorded in the debating chamber and its use in both forums; the
Sunday Star Times
and Parliament has prompted much debate.
Dr Keith Montgomery from the University of Auckland linguistics department told
Checkpoint
he thought the c-word was still one of the worst swear words.
"It's considered obviously completely wrong in most social situations, particularly if you're facing somebody that you don't know.
"Maybe contextually with their friends and it alleviates a little. But for the most part, I think most people would consider it still to be the most powerful of the words that have."
He said he did not think people's attitudes to using the c-word would change much.
"I have noted on the radio, even occasionally hearing it, and over time I think the f-word is ameliorated."
"We only have to look at the argument against bloody 30 years ago, when that was used in an advertisement and people went absolutely crazy. I don't think anybody even thinks about it now."
The way the word was said and how the word sounded when it was spoken created a big impact, he said.
"The sounds are blunt, there are only four sounds in it, it's a very short sharp word. It's normally delivered with quite a lot of emphasis that it's being used as a profanity and for that reason, that still has the ability to shock."
He said the word was used often by English poet Geoffrey Chaucer, known for
The Canterbury Tales
.
"About 30 odd years ago I was in a Chaucer lecture, and Chaucer uses the word on four or five occasions. It's unmarked and in Chaucer's English it's used, and it refers to the same thing, but it doesn't carry the obscene connotations it has now."
Montgomery said when he was asked to adjudicate a football match, he witnessed a sideline incident where the word was repeatedly used.
"The person was using the word repeatedly to the people around him and directed at the referee. He was in danger of being banned from the game.
"His defence was that he was Irish and in the Irish English it doesn't have the same weight, as it does in other types of English. And as it turns out, apparently the informal thing is quite true, it's used by a wider range of people without necessarily the connotations that we would have in New Zealand English or Australian or American."
The use of the c-word in Parliament did not fall into the category of perceived standards for Parliament, he said.
"[Brooke van Velden] was making a point. The word had been used, although I note in the newspaper they put four dots, they didn't actually print the word.
"I think perhaps [the newspaper] were trying to be edgy or the writer might have been as well."
He said however, if he opened a newspaper and the c-word was printed, he would be stunned.
"With the linguist job, our job's really not out there to prescribe what people do or say or whatever. But at the same time, we have personal points of view.
"Because of the rejection in general society, I don't think there's a context for it in an in a public forum. Like the newspaper trying to make a point, there are other ways that [it] could have been written, I believe."
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