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Fornicating Under Consent of King

literaryreview.co.uk

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Re: Fornicating Under Consent of King

#11

Post by thaumasiotes »

paleotrope wrote: post #5
thaumasiotes wrote: post #2

> the word whose usage is considered so offensive that it has caused the decline of its unfortunate near-homophone ‘niggardly’ That's not exactly a unique phenomenon. For example, it's how "rabbit" replaced "coney".

Which is funny because coney used to be pronounced more like cunny and was deliberately pronounced coney to get away from the vulgar associations.

> coney used to be pronounced more like cunny

That's still the only pronunciation I know. Rhymes with, and orthographically identical to, "money". (And "honey".)

Re: Fornicating Under Consent of King

#12

Post by JasonFruit »

paleotrope wrote: post #5
thaumasiotes wrote: post #2

> the word whose usage is considered so offensive that it has caused the decline of its unfortunate near-homophone ‘niggardly’ That's not exactly a unique phenomenon. For example, it's how "rabbit" replaced "coney".

Which is funny because coney used to be pronounced more like cunny and was deliberately pronounced coney to get away from the vulgar associations.

I thought it was still pronounced that way, which may account for certain odd looks directed at me.

Re: Fornicating Under Consent of King

#13

Post by mbg721 »

JasonFruit wrote: post #12
paleotrope wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is funny because coney used to be pronounced more like cunny and was deliberately pronounced coney to get away from the vulgar associations.

I thought it was still pronounced that way, which may account for certain odd looks directed at me.

"This is the Q train for Coney Island - Stillwell. Thanks for asking."

Re: Fornicating Under Consent of King

#14

Post by srean »

paleotrope wrote: post #5
thaumasiotes wrote: post #2

> the word whose usage is considered so offensive that it has caused the decline of its unfortunate near-homophone ‘niggardly’ That's not exactly a unique phenomenon. For example, it's how "rabbit" replaced "coney".

Which is funny because coney used to be pronounced more like cunny and was deliberately pronounced coney to get away from the vulgar associations.

Help out a non English speaker if you can. What vulgar associations ?

EDIT: Thanks, all who responded. I wouldn't have made the connection although I am quite familiar with the 'vulgar' word in question. The phonetic similarity sounds farfetched to me, one ends with a hard consonant, the other with a vowel sound.

Re: Fornicating Under Consent of King

#15

Post by thaumasiotes »

srean wrote: post #14
paleotrope wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is funny because coney used to be pronounced more like cunny and was deliberately pronounced coney to get away from the vulgar associations.

Help out a non English speaker if you can. What vulgar associations ? EDIT: Thanks, all who responded. I wouldn't have made the connection although I am quite familiar with the 'vulgar' word in question. The phonetic similarity sounds farfetched to me, one ends with a hard consonant, the other with a vowel sound.

Sounds like "cunny" = "cunt".

Responding to your edit:

> EDIT: Thanks, all who responded. I wouldn't have made the connection although I am quite familiar with the 'vulgar' word in question. The phonetic similarity sounds farfetched to me, one ends with a hard consonant, the other with a vowel sound.

It's not that "coney" sounds like "cunt". It doesn't. It's that it sounds like "cunny", which is a diminutive form of "cunt". Just like "Annie" is a diminutive form of "Anne", or "kitty" is a diminutive form of "cat".

Re: Fornicating Under Consent of King

#16

Post by mbg721 »

srean wrote: post #14
paleotrope wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is funny because coney used to be pronounced more like cunny and was deliberately pronounced coney to get away from the vulgar associations.

Help out a non English speaker if you can. What vulgar associations ? EDIT: Thanks, all who responded. I wouldn't have made the connection although I am quite familiar with the 'vulgar' word in question. The phonetic similarity sounds farfetched to me, one ends with a hard consonant, the other with a vowel sound.

Female genitalia, along the lines of Shakespeare's "Country matters".

Re: Fornicating Under Consent of King

#17

Post by banana_giraffe »

area51org wrote: post #3

It's amazing how many people still fall for the 'fuck-as-acronym' myths. I've literally argued with people convinced that FUCK stands for Fornication Under Consent of the King, or (as Van Halen apparently believed) For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge. No, none of the above. Nope.

> as Van Halen apparently believed

Not that it matters a ton: It was a friend of Sammy Hagar (Ray Mancini) that thought that. The band went with the name as a compromise instead of calling the album "Fuck" as a protest over censorship.

Re: Fornicating Under Consent of King

#18

Post by colechristensen »

dhosek wrote: post #10
mbg721 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Knowing the more likely etymology, it's a little awkward when I see the billboards for a dentist in my area named Dr. Ficker.

Speaking of misread signs, there's a Chinese restaurant on San Vicente in Los Angeles named Hunan Taste. More than one person has mistaken that first n for an m.

fick is German for fuck

Re: Fornicating Under Consent of King

#19

Post by lostcolony »

jdavis703 wrote: post #9
thaumasiotes wrote: post #2

> the word whose usage is considered so offensive that it has caused the decline of its unfortunate near-homophone ‘niggardly’ That's not exactly a unique phenomenon. For example, it's how "rabbit" replaced "coney".

In Spanish conejo (rhymes with coney) is rabbit. Interesting how we’re still slowly loosing cognates from our shared latin roots. Edit: I may be assuming an incorrect pronunciation of coney. Even as a native speaker English sucks.

You are; coney in English generally has a long e sound at the end (like saying the letter 'e'), not a long a sound (like saying the letter 'a'), so it wouldn't be the same or rhyme with the first two syllables of conejo (which has the long a sound in the second syllable).

Tangent, but in line with what others have commented, American English tends to pronounce the first syllable with a long o (like saying the letter 'o'), whereas British tends to pronounce it with a long oo sound (like the vowel sound in the the word 'food'). I've never heard it pronounced with a short 'u' sound (an 'uh' sound), but others intimated they either have, or have heard it pronounced close to it, which is interesting.

Re: Fornicating Under Consent of King

#20

Post by cryptonector »

jdavis703 wrote: post #9
thaumasiotes wrote: post #2

> the word whose usage is considered so offensive that it has caused the decline of its unfortunate near-homophone ‘niggardly’ That's not exactly a unique phenomenon. For example, it's how "rabbit" replaced "coney".

In Spanish conejo (rhymes with coney) is rabbit. Interesting how we’re still slowly loosing cognates from our shared latin roots. Edit: I may be assuming an incorrect pronunciation of coney. Even as a native speaker English sucks.

https://www.spanishdict.com/translate/conejo
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