You shouldn't apologise. The word isn't sexist in the context that you used it in.

People call other people "dicks" "pricks" "cocks" and so on, or unisex terms like "arseholes," all the time. Nobody gets offended on behalf of men or humans in those cases.

I love the fact that "cunt" still offends people -- it makes the word useful and when it is eventually worn out and as generally inoffensive as "bugger" became then we'll have to invent something worse/better -- but I also hate the *reason* it offends some people. It's ridiculous and over-sensitive to be offended by it on the grounds of sexism and equally ridiculous to assert -- as some have to me, I think when I called Blair a cunt in the pub as it happens :-) -- that only women can use the word because only they have ownership of the genitals which may go by the same name. I imagine the same people don't stop themselves using various terms for male genitalia.

The same collection of letters can have different meanings in different contexts. I don't even consider it the same word in the two different contexts.

Craig,

May I offer my congratulations about the coming baby, good luck to both you and Nadira. I hope everything goes smoothly. My wife and children are about the only things I take really seriously.

"I don't even consider it the same word in the two different contexts."
--Leo Davidson

Me neither - and I'm female. I thought Craig's headline was priceless.

writerman: Goodonya