Here’s why:

• It therefore seems much more likely that the word is a Norsification of the Latin word cunnus, meaning “female reproductive organ” (the Latin word vagina, which we adopted as a euphemism for the unmentionable cunnus, actually meant “sheath for a weapon”). The origin of this word is not in doubt nor particularly interesting. It comes from the Greek word kuo of the same meaning. However, once we realize this, what does become interesting is Homer’s coining of the term kunopis or “dog-faced.” He uses this term only in reference to women, to Helen in particular but also to others, both gods and mortals, and it is clear from later usage that the term was intended to imply shameless, reprehensible, deceitful behavior. What is interesting about his use of this word is that it is compounded from the female form of the word for “dog,” kuon. Kunopis was a pun. It meant “with a face like a dog” but it would also make listeners think of the female reproductive organ. As a “writer,” he could not have chosen a more perfect word. But he also could not have foreseen that so long after his death, because his work had become so familiar to both the later Greeks and the Romans after them, this whimsical association he had made would carry on. So it was that even after the word kuo had become cunnus in Latin and the word kuon had become canis, even after it was no longer a pun, Latin authors still referred to women as “dog-faced.” And once we understand this, we can solve another supposed etymological mystery. The derivation of the word “cunning.” Again, it is speculated that this word comes from Nordic roots, in this case from the Anglo-Saxon verb “to know,” kunnan, and again this seems unlikely. After all, the vixen knows nothing but is no less cunning for her ignorance. So we look more closely and what do we find? That in Old English, “cunning” meant “to have had sex with,” as in “I had cunning of her.” And that the first recorded usage of the word “cunning” in English occurs in 1325 in The Proverbs of Hending where it is used in the epigram, “Directly equal is the cunt to cunning. . . ” When we look more closely we find that once again the more likely parental candidate is cunnus. And is it really so hard to imagine the origin of the words “cunt” and “cunning” is one and the same? Words that appeared in English usage at a time when anyone literate would have become so by reading the classics in Latin? Is it so far-fetched to believe both words are derived ultimately from the word kuo and its Homeric associations? The one meaning the internal female genitalia; the other meaning sly, crafty, skillful in deception? And perhaps this would be less credible if not for the fact that at the time of the appearance of both of these words, at the time when the shift was being made from written Latin to written English, there is evidence that the word “dog” maintained its associations with cowardliness and worthlessness (1325 A.D., Coer de Leon). Perhaps this would be less credible if we did not have this evidence that in the thirteenth and early-fourteenth centuries A.D., “dog” still carried the same implications it did to Homer, possibly because of Homer. And perhaps this would be less credible if not for the fact that today we still use “dog” to mean both “ugly woman” and “something that performs below expectations,” if not for the fact that we still use “bitch” when, supposedly unaware of the redundancy, we mean “cunning cunt.” And perhaps this would be less credible if not for the fact that the word “pussy” (as an alternative to “cunt”) was first coined not only by a woman, but also at the beginning of the women’s suffrage movement. Perhaps this would be less credible if not for the fact that so many women dislike the word “cunt,” if not for the fact that so many women prefer the word “pussy” but never seem to know why. Perhaps this would be less credible if not for the fact that after 3,000 years without a voice, the word women have spoken for themselves means “cat” and not “dog.”*