Vittu is the Finnish word for cunt. The rudest word in the language, it is among the very few Finnish words rarely spelled out in full or said out loud on TV or radio. Very much like the English fuck, it can be used anywhere in a sentence without regard to its original meaning as an intensifier, and much like Americans joke about the Brooklyn alphabet ("Fuckin' A! Fuckin' B! Fuckin' C!"), the Finnish joke about the dialect of Korso. There is even a famous webpage, korsoraattori.evvk.com, that will Korso-ize any webpage by inserting the word vittu (and a few select others) at random.

History

In terms of etymology, vittu seems to be an imported version of the Germanic Fötze, probably via Swedish fitta. It has been used in Finnish for a long time though, and traditionally, a vittu was the vulva of a woman who has given birth to a child, while the word pillu was reserved for girls who haven't. (Virginity does not seem to have been a factor, although in the old days bearing a child outside wedlock was almost unheard of.) While most Finns are aware of the distinction, it is largely obsolete these days.

Usage

A few select phrases with distinct meanings:

Haista vittu!: "Smell cunt!" The Finnish equivalent of "Fuck you". Not said lightly.

Hevon vittu: "Horse cunt". Used for mostly for something impossible or incomprehensible, eg. En tajunnu hevon vittuu siitä mitä se selitti, lit. "I didn't understand horse cunt about what he was talking about", or Ei siel ollu hevon vittuu, "I couldn't find even a horse cunt there".

Kiitti vitusti: "Thanks cunt", used when you really do not want to thank somebody. Equivalent to the English "Fuck you very much".

Mennä päin vittua: An odd little phrase: literally "go towards a cunt", probably the closest English equivalent is "to fuck up" something, e.g. an exam that you scored F- on.

Suksi vittuun! "Go ski into a cunt!" A very Nordic way of telling someone to fuck off.

Vedä vittu päähän!: "Pull a cunt on your head!" Essentially "Shut the fuck up".

Voi vittu!: "Oh cunt!" Essentially identical to "Oh shit!". "Voi" also happens to mean "butter" in Finnish, so the proper waggish reply to "voi vittu" -- buttered cunt -- is "Now on sale at the bakery!".

Vitun X: Value-neutral all-purpose intensifier. Vitun hyvä is fucking awesome, vitun hullu is fucking insane. Can be used with absolutely anything, eg. vitun juustohampurilainen would be a fucking cheeseburger and a Korso kid would probably say this if he was expecting a plain burger instead.

Vittujen kevät: "Spring of the cunts". Contrary to what male logic would tend to indicate, this is a common exclamation used when something (very) bad happens. Alas, I haven't been able to locate the origins of this phrase.

Vituttaa: Literally, this should mean "to want to cunt", but the real meaning is "to be pissed off". See pissed off like a little squirrel with a frozen pine cone for an example.

Vittuilla: One of those words that deserves to be exported into other languages. Basically "to piss off someone" or "to fuck with someone" (but not in the literal sense!), to abuse your power over them or attempt to show your superiority. Drunken Finnish fights traditionally start with Vittuiletsä mulle häh? ("You got a fucking problem with me?").

Vittumainen: Lit. "cuntlike", in practice "annoying", "bitchy" or just "difficult". Can (and is) often used for inanimate objects or tasks.

Note that, unlike English cunt, it is not possible to simply call someone a vittu, Finnish just doesn't work that way. (On the other hand, one of the rudest things to call a woman is vittuteline, literally "cunt holder", conjuring up a mental image of something like a hatrack with a vulva suspended in the middle.)

Substitutions

Since it is used so much and in so many forms, it is quite common to substitute other similar-sounding but innocuous words. (Compare this with English, where you will hear phrases like "I want to funk you all night long" only in really bad R&B songs.) Some common alternatives:

  • hattu: hat
    • especially as vedä hattu päähän, "pull a hat on your head"
  • kettu: fox
  • kukka: flower
    • especially as haista kukkanen, "smell a flower"
  • vattu: raspberry
  • vitsi: joke
Creative versions of these are a mainstay of Finnish stand-up comedy. Another option is to abbreviate the word to its first letter V (vee), as blatantly abused by ski jumping legend-cum-popstar Matti Nykänen in his infamous song "V style".

In a bit of a feministic backlash against what is obviously a pretty misogynistic insult, the substitution of kyrpä, "cock", has become quite popular among Finnish women these days. This line has been adopted even by some few men, who find it bizarre to use the name of a thing they like so much as an insult.

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