One era’s foul-mouthed insult is another’s evocatively named topological feature, which is why, if you find yourself driving past a clefted hill in rural Lincolnshire, you might be delighted to know that it was once referred to as “Cuntewellewang”, not that far from “Scamcunt Grene”.
I gleaned these and many other utterly diverting facts from Jenni Nuttall’s Mother Tongue: The Surprising History of Women’s Words, in which she minutely details the shifts of language and meaning over the centuries through the lens of women’s experiences.
