Finnish Swearword, Italian Blessing?

There is no proper cussing in Finnish without an old word that refers to female reproductive organs, “vittu”. It was fairly early into our relationship when my boyfriend learnt what the most Finnish cuss word means. He could not believe his ears. Moreover, the fact that one of the most offensive things a Finn can say to someone is to either ask someone to literally smell a vittu (pussy, cunt) or ask them to stick to it, is beyond his understanding. How can female genitals possibly be used as a cuss word and be put into offensive sentences? He says that “Haista vittu” (Smell pussy!) is a blessing. – “It’s like saying `I wish you a long and happy life!`”. He maintains that for an Italian, telling them to literally “smell” the body part in question or even go into it is just about the most beautiful thing you can say.

Perhaps it is a little weird that Finns have a chosen a word referring to female genitals as their favorite cuss. The v-word has a long history: apparently it was borrowed from Swedish for about 1000 years ago. The actual meaning of the word has been washed away and it is nowadays used pretty much the same way as “like” or “you know” in English, at least by young people. If you are looking for a more current vulgar term that actual refers to the female genitals, you would probably pick some other word from the smörgåsbord of possibilities.

I admit the v-word is my favorite cuss, too. There is something particularly satisfying with that sharp “v” sound and the two t:s. The Finnish Wikipedia page digging deep into this powerful word has a quote from a researcher of Finnish language saying that as a cuss, the v-word is perfect both phonetically and aerodynamically. Perhaps we Finns love to use it because it’s just a fantastic word -phonetically and aerodynamically- not because we think using female genital words as cusses is a particularly lovely idea per se?

“Vittu” provides endless variations from telling people to literally go and ski into it (“Suksi vittuun”) to adjectives describing someone as being an asshole, or actually, “cunt head” (“vittupää”). If something is really annoying you and you are angry, your verb is “vituttaa”. From my school years (a while ago) I remember a particularly rebellious teenage student telling a teacher that she should draw the cunt over her head (“vedä vittu päähäs”), which is still a valid saying if you need to tell someone to go f**k themselves.

Cussing in Finnish is an art form, with and without our favorite v-word, but also Italians are known for their creative ways of insulting people. Especially people from Rome have the reputation of being able to pull off a string of swears and bad words that lasts for half an hour. Often, insulting the other person’s mother is an important element of a proper Italian swearing at someone, but it doesn’t stop there. For a good example of Italian insult ranting, watch this clip from “Billions”:

The Italian flow of cuss words is diverse, but using the female genital organs as a cuss is a pretty alien concept. According to my other half, only if you live in Venice or around, you might be saying “go to c**t” as a way of telling someone to go to hell in a similar way a Finn would send someone to the v-place. The word used in that sentence is “mona”, which means many things, “pussy” among others. The etymology of “mona” probably goes back to “madonna”, “my lady”, which is why it also refers to “the lady of the house” (and “pussy” at the same time). To make things more complicated, it also means “idiot”. Those who can read Italian may study more about the various uses of “mona” in here.

Even if I am not particularly in love with the idea of using the old name of female genitals as a cuss, I have a bad habit of using exactly this word whenever I hit my toe on a leg of a chair or drop a contact lens on the floor. However, in our household, telling someone to smell a vittu or to go to it will never work as an offense -it will always be taken as one of the nicest things you can say to an Italian man.

Cussing in Finnish is not all about the v-word, but Finns do like to express a lot of their emotions using it. Also when inside the voting booth. Kirkkovene, church boat, is a traditional graphical representation of a pussy. It is also what you draw in your voting ticket in case you feel none of the candidates is worthy of your vote.

If you use your imagination a little bit, you see how the picture above is an aerial view of an old fashioned long boat with which people used to row to the church. (That's what you have to do if you live in a country that has 187 888 lakes.) Just like "Vittu!" is what you say when there is nothing else to say, the church boat is what you draw when you have no words to write. In the end, when emotions run high and nothing goes right, we all just need a way to metaphorically represent to us an escape back to where we all came from.