I just read a story by Al Kennedy and now I just have to ask: Is there really some region in or around the UK where ‘twat’ is pronounced in a way that rhymes with ‘flat’ and ‘that’, as opposed to rhyming with words like ‘tot’?
The Kennedy piece (‘Vanish’ in the Ox-Tales: Air volume) features a little ditty in which we are given what are clearly meant to be two rhyming couplets, but she rhymes ‘twat’ with ‘flat’ and ‘that’. My shock on reading it was boundless.
Has Kennedy made a revealing mistake (like, she has never heard this word uttered) or was my entire upbringing a lie?
–Greg
P.S. The OED gives but one pronunciation of the hallowed word and rhymes it with ‘tot’ and not with ‘flat’. While I find some comfort in this, it does not really answer my burning question.
Yes, all over. The OED doesn’t appear to be up to date with customary UK usage in this case.
I believe there’s increasingly also a trans-Atlantic difference of meaning, if only in degree. In the UK it’s now often a synonym for “fool”, deployed by some people in this sense when they appear not to be aware of its traditional meaning of “vagina”.
It was used to mean “fool” in a radio interview by our current Prime Minister in July 2009. Would President Obama talk publicly about a twat?
I feel I am about to be ‘whooshed’ here, but I’ve only ever heard it pronounced to rhyme with ‘flat’ (as an insult).
You need the hard ‘a’ to get the full teeth-snarling venom (you twat, you twatting twat, who twatted that twat, etc). Although twattishness is not usually an invitation to violence. Being a wanker, on the other hand…(no pun intended).
As for it’s original vulgar expression, it’s not really a word in fashion at present. Whether this affects pronunciation I have no idea.
I believe the celluloid offerings of one Master Richie will inform, if not entertain, in this regard. I am off to have an attack of the vapours and a nice cup of Darjeeling. The perfumed ponce…
In the film Pirate Radio (2009), one government bureaucrat’s last name is Twatt, and his superior (Kenneth Branagh) always pronounces it as though it rhymed with “flat.” Funny flick, btw.
BUT…where I grew up, in the midwest USA, the pronunciation always rhymed with “ought.”
I’ve never heard it pronounced “twot” in my life, and I use the word - and get called it - a lot. As for it being used to mean “fool”, well, yes, but that doesn’t mean it has lost its original meaning; quite the contrary, its original meaning is the whole point of applying it as an insult - it’s just a much less offensive version of the “c” word, in which the female pudenda is being proclaimed as a pejorative: “You twat” being the equivalent of “You cock” etc. It’s actually news to me that it can be pronounced “twot” - I thought that was just the way inbred posh people said it, either because they don’t want to swear, gosh-darn-it, or because their horsey teeth get in the way too much to say it properly. The twats.
Keith, I assure you that “ought” is a quite standard pronunciation, at least in the American Midwest. I think your most recent trip to the US was California, and apparently you didn’t work “twat” into your conversation, where the “flat” sound would have provoked stares and smiles. To my ears, the “ought” version is a lot more pejorative, especially when flung at a fellow basketballer who has just poked an elbow in me ribs. The ugly street version is the C word, and lately that has morphed into the B word. In all cases, it’s using female anatomy to denigrate male character, and thus is totally sexist, chauvinist, patriarchial, uncouth, and uncool to boot. As a son, father, and husband, I totally repudiate such talk. Harrumph.
Oh dear, now I have conclusive proof that I am out of touch with popular culture – I can’t imagine what the “B word” might be. My children have refused to translate a couple of acronyms for me this week, on account of their being “too rude” to tell me about, even though I saw them in quite respectable publications. And there was me thinking I was liberal-minded and au fait with obscene vocabulary in an academic sort of way (well, I’m studying a course in Scottish medieval and early modern history at the moment, and have read William Dunbar’s flyting with Kennedy, in which he introduced the C and F words to the written language, if that counts for anything). Back to being an old fuddy-duddy, then…
Druid: If you read the title of this thread, you will see that we are clearly talking about UK pronunciation. So “twought” is common in the US? How amusing. I can’t see “twought” as being pejorative at all! Such a pronunciation would provoke just such “stares and smiles” over here; I am not sure when your last visit here was. But then, as a son, father and commonlaw-husband, I really can’t find it in myself to harumph at everything in the modern world except for the iPad as you can.
Mind you, my beloved Chaucer has handy Nicholas grab Alisoun by the “quaynt” (ahem!).
Hmm, I can’t think of a “B” word worse than the “C” word either. Perhaps another Americanism I am ignorant for not being aware of? It’s not “boyage” is it? As in: “OOH! Boyage!” No, too Sahf Lahndan.
It sounds so weird (and hilarious to my English ears) to hear some in the US and Australia say “twot” (“twought” must be especially posh ). I’m sure “twat” sounds equally odd to our Colonial cousins. Where’s Matt? Do Australians really say it that way too? Can it actually sound offensive when said that way?
Anyway, to stay on-topic, British English most certainly rhymes “twat” with “cat”. I’d be interested to hear if there is anywhere in the UK that says “twot” (without being laughed at). I very much doubt it. This is really amusing - I really never knew this word got pronounced “twot” anywhere. What else have I missed? Tissers? Tots? Beebs? Ceck?
Offensiveness is truly in the ears of the beholder.
I feel like such a . . . tot. Thanks a lot. My mind is well and truly blown.
A closer examination of the OED entry shows that both pronunciations have been in parlance for a long time. Though the OED gives only the rhymes-with-‘tot’ pronunciation, some of the quotations clearly reflect the rhymes-with-‘cat’ way. So, for example, we find a very early rhyme in which ‘twat’ is paired with ‘hat’. The quotations attest to the other pronunciation primarily through the recurrence of variant spellings like ‘twot’’.
(That ‘tot’ and ‘twat’ should rhyme is interesting, since ‘tot’ once had a meaning similar to one of the senses of ‘twat’, namely, fool.)
I shall now go give myself a good swat on the nose.
–Greg
P.S. The OED also includes an entry attesting to a U.S. usage of ‘twat’ to mean buttocks. How confused is that? We need to find these people and root 'em out.
As one of the much maligned public school (UK style … albeit minor public school) and Oxbridge educated persons, I have only ever heard it pronounced to rhyme with cat.
But I have to say that in some sense I am equally if not more sheltered than Siren, as people assume me to be such an upper-class, elitist twat because of my accent and manner, so people forebear to swear and use expletives in front of me, especially women, and frequently find it necessary to apologise to me if they do fearing they will have upset me … far from the case and quite unnecessary. This is compounded by the fact that I, myself, only insert oaths and imprecations in my utterances when in extremis of irritation, so most people have never heard me swear.
Oh, and in a sense, things are more difficult here, as a rumour started a couple of years ago on one of the two campuses of the university, spread to the other and then out into the city at large, that I am a member of the British aristocracy. It couldn’t be more wrong, as it happens.
But I’ve still only heard ‘twat’ pronounced with a ‘flat’ ‘a’.
Xiamenese … who has grounds for thinking he should change his soubriquet to “Fujianese”, but Jaysen’s “Mr X” is much preferable to “Mr F”
You have to admit, that setup was just too easy to ignore.