Some words are more offensive in American than they are in English. (I am following President Obama's "Austrian" example here, in treating these as separate languages.) Bugger is a case in point, insofar as this wonderfully versatile word is used at all. Fag, likewise. Conversely fanny is not so rude, and the thrice-funny name Randy Bumgardner, which has English readers in stitches, raises nary an eyebrow in the White House where he is General Manager.

Pussy doesn't travel well either, and thereby hangs a tail of common language division. David Thompson:

Ophelia Benson is pondering the word “pussy” and its connotations. In response to this Jesus and Mo cartoon on protecting deities from ridicule, a commenter writes, 

I’ve always wondered [why] the gods of today, especially the god of Islam, is such a pussy. He is unable to do a thing to protect himself or his reputation and must rely on his minions to do his dirty work.

Ophelia takes exception and replies,

The god of Islam “is such a pussy. He is unable to do a thing to protect himself or his reputation and must rely on his minions to do his dirty work” - meaning women are weak cowardly parasites.

I realise the ambiguities of the word “pussy” may vary on the other side of the Atlantic, where the dubious sexual connotations are perhaps more often emphasised and have a less whimsical air. (Maybe it’s a generational thing, or a gay man thing, or a trash sitcom thing, but when I hear “pussy” in a sexual context, if anything at all comes to mind it could well be Mrs Slocombe from Are You Being Served?) On the very rare occasions I’ve used the word - ironically and with a terrible American accent - I’ve used it to denote a kind of feebleness. Naïve soul that I am, I took the intended meaning here to be that Allah appears to be a sissy, coward or weakling, perhaps rather pampered, like a house cat; not that Allah in some way resembles the female genitals, or that the aforementioned body parts are contemptible, or that all women are contemptible. (Conceivably, some female non-Muslims may take exception to the suggestion - if one were made - that their ladygarden is in any way similar to the befuddled deity of Islam.)

Ladygarden? It's all downhill from there.