Profanity

A profanity (or swear words, or curse word, or foul language, or dirty word) under current colloquial use is a word, expression, gesture, or other usage which is generally considered insulting, rude or vulgar. The extent to which a profanity is considered to be in some way disagreeable or objectionable depends on context, timing and various other factors. However, the use of certain profanities at certain times, especially in a public setting or during a solemn occasion, may always be considered inappropriate or in bad taste, if not outright abusive, obscene or offensive. At other times the use of certain profanities will be considered mild or acceptable, and may take less recognizable forms, such as a minced oath.

The original meaning of the term was restricted to blasphemy, sacrilege or speaking God's name in vain. Profanity represented a secular indifference to religion or religious figures, while blasphemy was a more offensive attack on religion and religious figures. However, the term has been extended to include expressions with scatological, sexist, derogatory, racist, or sexual themes. Compare the concept of the four-letter word. The more vague and inclusive interpretation blurs the distinction between categories of offensive words (see Cursing in America by Timothy Jay).

The use and meaning of profanity is culturally and linguistically specific. For example, many profanities in Quebec French are a corruption of religious terminology, while many English obscenities tend to reference sexuality. A term which functions as a profanity in one language may often lack any profane quality when translated into another language.

US obscenity laws were originally meant to prohibit attacks on religion and religious figures or to protect children from profane speech. Since the time of the Civil War in the late 1800s, restrictions have focused more on sexual speech. There has always been great difficulty in defining profanity. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission, in response to complaints about a 1973 broadcast comedy routine by George Carlin, called: Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television, ruled that such language could not be broadcast at times of day when there is a reasonable risk that children may be in the audience. The Supreme Court of the United States upheld this act of censorship in F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U.S. 726 (1978). Despite this definition, people of every ethnicity, class and level of education swear. Seventy-two percent of American men and fifty-eight percent of American women swear in public , and Sixty-one percent of adolescents and Eighty-nine percent of adults swear in public. Most researchers consider these numbers to be in line with other populations worldwide.

History

Terms of profanity have historically been taboo words. Some words originally considered profane have become much less offensive with the increasing secularity of society, while others, primarily racial or ethnic epithets which can be considered part of hate speech, have become increasingly taboo. One vulgar expression that has remained taboo is "fuck you".

The obscene word cunt maintains much of its taboo status at least partly due to the influence of feminism, though other feminists are attempting to "reclaim" a neutral or complimentary status for this word. Shakespeare hinted at the word in Hamlet, Twelfth Night and Henry V: Hamlet quips about "country matters" when he tries to lay his head in Ophelia's lap; Malvolio has the salacious line "These be her very c's, her u's, and her t's, and thus she makes her great p's"; and the French Princess Katherine is amused by the word gown for its similarity to the French con ("fucking stupid", "asshole"). Interestingly, the word "cunt," while retaining its original meaning in America, has changed in meaning somewhat in Great Britain in the past thirty years. Where American usage of the word exclusively refers to either female anatomy or (in extreme cases) an ill-tempered woman, "cunt" in the UK has attained the status of a gender-neutral insult, akin to "asshole" "bastard" or "fuckface"

In the U.S. today, terminology considered to be racist is often seen as more offensive than sexual or scatalogical terminology; this is most clearly shown in the attention given to use of the word nigger, now effectively banned in American public discourse, although many blacks use the word "nigga" more than whites do in their normal conversations. So strong is the social disapproval aimed at this word, that it has affected use of the unrelated, but similar-sounding, word niggardly (meaning "stingy"). For example, in a highly publicized incident in 1999, the mayor of Washington, DC, Anthony A. Williams, pressed for the resignation of his staff member, David Howard, because Howard used the word "niggardly" in a private staff meeting [1]. As with other types of profanity, context is very important; thus, Americans of African descent might use the word nigger, or the related nigga, in informal situations among themselves, without being considered offensive.

Psycholinguistic studies have demonstrated that profanity and other taboo words produce physical effects in people who read or hear them, such as an elevated heart rate.

This fact is seen by some as evidence that reclaiming of words such as queer and bitch as a valid way to remove their power. See also the article on nigger.

The offensiveness or perceived intensity or vulgarity of the various profanities can change over time, with certain words becoming more or less offensive as time goes on. For example, in modern times the word piss is usually considered mildly vulgar and somewhat impolite, whereas the King James Bible unblushingly employs it where modern translators would prefer the word urine (2 Kings 18:27; Isa 36:12) or urinate (1 Sam 25:22, 25:34; 1 Kings 14:10, 16:11, 21:21; 2 Kings 9:8). The word cunt has seen a similar evolution; its ancestor ("queynte") was not considered vulgar at all, but the word is now considered among the most offensive words in the English language.

Severity

The relative severity of the various British profanities, as perceived by the public, was studied on behalf of the British Broadcasting Standards Commission, Independent Television Commission, BBC and Advertising Standards Authority; the results of this jointly commissioned research were published in December 2000 in a paper called "Delete Expletives". It listed the profanities in order of severity, the top ten being cunt, motherfucker, fuck, wanker, nigger, bastard, prick, bollocks, arsehole, and paki, in that order. 83% of respondents regarded cunt as "very severe"; 16% thought the same about shit and 10% crap. Only about 1% thought cunt was "not swearing"; 9% thought the same about shit and 32% crap.

Interlanguage

The situation is rendered even more complex when other languages enter the picture. Merde in French, and Scheiße in German (both usually translated as shit) are also quite common, as well as Italian Merda or Spanish Mierda. While German and other languages' profanity seems to focus on elimination, English profanity tends to be sexual in nature. Italian represents an exception here, due to the massive use of Cazzo and Figa (translated as dick and cunt, with the latter being less insulting than English) in common speech; both are very common in the Italian language and both have, for the most part, lost their vulgar meaning. Likewise, in European Spanish, coño (usually translated as cunt in English) is very common in informal spoken discourse, meaning no more than "Hey!"

Some scholars have noted that while the French and Spanish are comfortable hearing native speakers use these words, they tend to hear the "stronger" meaning when the same words are spoken by non-native speakers. This may be similar to the differences in the acceptability of queer or nigger depending on who is saying the words. Or it may be an example of how it is easier to learn swear words in a new language or dialect than to learn the fine shades of intensity which accompany their use.

A profane word in one language often sounds like an ordinary word in another. Fuck sounds like the French words for seal (phoque) and jib (foc), the Spanish words for seal (foca) and lightbulb (foco) or the Irish word for words (focail), as well as the Romanian word for do (I do can be fac eu, which sounds a lot like the English fuck you). Also, Croatian phrase fakat sounds similar to English "fuck at" when it actually means "really". 'Fuck' also sounds like the Latin imperative singular form of "do" or "make" ("fac") and the you all a bunch of stupid fuck bitch ass whore munchers, you'll all burn in hell like the fags you fuckin are.Swedish word for union (fack) ; shit sounds somewhat like the Russian for "shield". The Cantonese words for "flower" and "bridge" when said together ("fa kyu") sounds vaguely similar to "fuck you," as does the Latin word for "I do" ("facio"). Also, the Latin singular imperative of "say" ("dic") is pronounced like the English "dick". Even names in one language may appear as vulgar words in another linguistic community, which causes many immigrants to change their names (common Vietnamese personal names include Phuc and Bich; a fairly common Thai name is Porn.). A particular coincidence is the Hungarian and Spanish and Italian words for curve: Spanish curva sounds like a Slavic, Romanian and Hungarian kurva meaning "prostitute" (or, more offensively, "whore"), and Hungarian kanyar sounds like coño, mentioned above. See another example in Laputa. Additionally, puta is genitive and accusative case of two often used words in south Slavic languages; but in Portuguese and Spanish, means "whore", and filho da puta (Spanish: hijo de puta) is an offensive word, similar to son of a bitch. In Finnish, katso merta means look at the sea, but to Italophones it sounds very similar to cazzo merda; cazzo is the English equivalent of cock or dick, and merda means shit. While cazzo merda does not make much sense grammatically (they are just two substantives put one after the other), hearing such a thing would be funny for Italians, to say the least. Even more for Spaniards, since the same sentence, katso merta, sounds just like the offensive expression cacho mierda (piece of shit) in Spanish. The Spanish word puse (the first-person past-tense of to put) sounds similar to the English profanity pussy. This is often a source of discomfort for Spanish teachers and humor for Spanish students when the conjugation is being taught.

In at least one case in Spanish, one word with one connotation in the native language of one of its colonies (in this case, the Philippines) was adopted with another profane connotation in Spanish. The Tagalog word pinga (which means a pole, particularly the one used as a whip to strike or otherwise drive a stray horse into walking on a straight line) is regarded as an equivalent of dick in some Spanish countries, particularly Cuba and Puerto Rico. Yet the word pinga in Portuguese is the slang name for Cachaça, a Brazilian alcoholic beverage.

Quebec French can string a few basic terms from Roman Catholic liturgy into quite impressive strings of invective of up to a minute or more. This is known as sacre.

The German interjection for surprise or admiration Hui! sounds completely like the Russian swear word and equivalent to cock (khuj).

A more exotic example of interlanguage profanity is the English word "Carry" which sounds exactly the same as the Sinhala (Spoken in Sri Lanka) profanity for semen.

Italian

Main article: Italian profanity

Profanity, insulting, rude and vulgar words have a great use in the modern Italian. Today some hundreds of dialects are spoken in Italy, and so today there is a great number of dialectal vulgar words in current use. Many of these dialectal words are used throughout the country, others have a local use. With the giant differences between the dialects (for a Lombardian it is easier to understand Spanish than one of the many Sicilian or Calabrian dialects) the Italian language today contains hundreds of vulgar and insulting words. Many of them have the same meaning but different origins; minchia (sicilian), verga (sicilian), cazzo (napoletan), pirla (milanese), uccello (tuscanian), minca (sardinian), ciolla (emilian), picio (piedmont) are some of the most used vulgar word to indicate the penis. In Italian there are at least 140 vulgar words for penis and around 100 that mean vagina. Vulgar words as "cazzo", "fica-figa", "culo" (asshole), "merda" (shit), "vaffanculo"/"ma vaffanculo" (go fuck yourself), "pirla" (means dick but it's used as "idiot or stupid"), "coglioni" (bollocks/balls) and some others are often used on tv and movies."Fungul"(Fuck you) They are still not widely accepted in formal speech and are still viewed as taboo by the older generation.

Blasphemy, sacrilege or speaking God's name in vain are common but are part still today of an offensive and rude Italian. Notable examples are Porco Dio and Porca Madonna (literally "God's a pig" and "The Holy Virgin's a Pig"). The former used to be a misdemeanor and could be punished by with a fine until the second half of the nineties, a law passed under Fascism, when Roman Catholicism had the status of state religion.

Bosnian/Serbian/Croatian

• Jebite se (fuck you(yourself))
• Jebem ti mater(majku) (I fuck your mother)
• Jebo ti pas mater A dog fucks your mother
• Kurvin sin(e) (Son of a bitch)
• Popuši mi kurac (Suck my dick)
• Goni se u pičku materinu Go up your mother's cunt)
• Seronja (Bullshiter, liar)
• Usro (Shit on oneself, one who is clumsy and good for nothing can also mean scared)
• Pizda/Pička (Pussy(literal), coward)
• Govno jedno (You piece of shit)
• Jebo te Bog (May God fuck you)
• Mars u picku materinu (go to your mothers cunt)
• Picka ti materina (similar to motherfucker)
• Poserem ti se na glavu (i shit on you head)
• Jebem te u Cmar (i fuck you in the ass )
• Jebem ti sve po spisku (i fuck everything you have (family) according to the list)
• Sta se kurcis? (why are you being a jackoff)
• Pedercino (faggot)
• Jebem li ti klicu (i fuck your roots(family))
• Kopile (bastard; asshole)
• Osuditi, prokleti (damn)

Spanish

Main article: Spanish profanity

• Jódete (Fuck you, fuck yourself)
• Mámamela / Cómemela / Chúpamela (Suck my dick)
• Hijo de (la gran) puta (Motherfucker lit. Son of a (great/big) whore/bitch)
• Marica / Maricón / Cueco / Cuecón (Faggot)
• Malparido (mother fucker)
• Mamavergas / Chupabolas (Cocksucker)
• Culero / Pendejo (Asshole)
• Puta (Whore)
• Perra (Bitch)
• Mierda, nojoda (Shit)
• Coño/chucha (Pussy; damn; often used as a term of address no ruder than saying bloody in English)
• cagado (coward)
• Carajo (Shit/Damn)
• Cabrón (Bastard lit. One who has been cheated on [horns of a goat put on])
• Bicho / Polla / Pinga/mondá (used In the Colombian Caribbean coast) (Penis/Dick)
• Culo/jopo (Ass)
• Cara de picha/carepicha (Dick face)
• Mamon (Titsucker)Stupid
• Huevón (Lazy lit. person with huge testicles)
• Lameculos ( ass licker)
• Triple malparido (three times mother fucker)
• Mamatoletaso(big dick sucker)
• Hijo de la Cemilla(son of your fucking mother)

(American Spanish / European Spanish)

Expressions

• Poner el culo lit. put your ass(face the problem)
• Sacar el culo Lit. get your ass out (run away from a problem)
• Sacarse la leche (give your best)</nowiki>

German

• Arsch(loch) (Ass(hole))
• Fick dich/Fick dich selber (Fuck you/Go fuck yourself, Fuck You)
• Hurensohn/Nuttenkind/Hurenkind (Son-of-a-bitch, whoreson)
• Wichser (Jack-off)
• Schwanzlutscher (Cocksucker)
• Zicke (Bitch)
• Hure/Nutte (Whore)
• Schwuchtel/Tucke/Tunte (Faggot)
• Schlampe (Slut)
• Scheiße (Shit)
• Fotze (Cunt)

Norwegian

• Fitte (Cunt)
• Hore (Whore)
• Horeunge (Son of a bitch, literally: whore kid )
• Dritt (Shit, crap)
• Kuksuger (Cocksucker)
• Kuk (Cock)
• Pikk (Cock)
• Soper (Faggot)
• Homse (Faggot)

Portuguese

Main article: Portuguese profanity

• (filho da )Puta ((son of a )bitch)
• Merda/Bosta (Shit)
• Cu (ass)
• Foder (Fuck)
• Caralho (Penis)

Polish

• Pierdol się (fuck you) [perdol seee]
• Matkojebca (motherfucker) [matkoyebtza]
• Skurwysyn (son of a bitch) [skoorwysyn]
• Pizda/Cipa (pussy, vagina) [peezda, tzeepa]
• Gówno (shit) [goowno]
• Pedał/Ciota (faggot) [pedau, tsota]
• Dupek (asshole) [doopeck]
• Dupa (ass) [doopa]
• Kurwa/Suka (whore, bitch) [coorfa, sooca]
• Chuj/Kutas (cock, dick, prick) [hooi, kootas]

Russian

Profanity took a very interesting form in Russia where there exists a language of sorts called mat, most of its words based on five basic profane roots -- nouns penis - hui, bitch - suka, whore - blyat, cunt - pizda and verb fuck - yebat. At least two hundred derivative words exist in this language, plus countless word combinations. It is possible to sensibly communicate using just these five basic roots. Due to countless very fine nuances (stress on a different syllable changes the meaning of certain words etc.) it is not easy to master that language which is very widely used in Russia, especially in rural areas. Before the 1990s these words never appeared in print (except special articles published in universities) and they remain officially banned on TV and in the movies.

Dutch

The Dutch are one of the few peoples - together with the Germanophone Swiss - to ask God to damn them, instead of other persons or things. Whereas in English a person would say: "damn it" or "damn you", a Dutch speaker would use "verdomme" (damn me) or the stronger "godverdomme". This usage was fairly common in English as late as the seventeenth century, but has since largely become archaic (though the grammatically-similar "fuck me" remains in occasional use).

Another trait of Dutch profanity is the use of diseases as common and accepted profanity. The most common forms are simply telling someone "krijg de (disease)!" meaning "go and get infected by (disease)" and "(disease)lijer", "lijer" meaning "someone who suffers".

Some examples include:

(Comparable to "Asshole", noun)

• Kankerlijer (One who suffers from cancer)
• Teringlijer (One who suffers from tuberculosis)
• Schurftelijer (One who suffers from scabies)
• Klerelijer (One who suffers from cholera)

(Comparable to "Drop dead", dismissive)

• Krijg de pest (Get infected with the plague)
• krijg de klere (Get infected with cholera)
• Pleur op (Get infected with pleuritis)
• Kanker op (Using cancer as a verb, combined with "up")
• Krijg de tyfus (Get infected with typhus)
• Rot op (This is comparable to disease, since you ask him to rot away)
• krijg SARS(get infected with SARS)
• etc.

In Dutch profanity, genital terms are clearly dominant over anal terms (Opposed to languages such as English, French and German). Dutch grammar allows very long compound words to be made by mixing multiple cursewords, or to make derogative sentences. Example: pestpokkenkankertyfusweer (Plague + pox + cancer + typhus weather)

Another feature of Dutch is the fact that the curseword "kut" (cunt) can, like many diseases, be used as a prefix to a noun. Note that Dutch "kut" is considerably less offensive than its English cognate, and that the meaning of "kut" is not always the same.

Examples include:

• Kutfiets (Lit. Cuntbicycle, corresponding to "stupid bicycle")
• Kuthond (Lit. Cuntdog, corresponding to "damned dog")

Other examples of Dutch cursewords include:

• Lafaard (Coward)
• Hufter (Someone who is rude and mean)
• Smeerlap (Someone who is rude and enjoys other peoples misery)

Japanese

Japanese is occasionally cited as an example of a language with little or no profanity, but this myth is mostly due to a misunderstanding of the complex system of politeness levels in the language. Common verbs, like "to do" or "to give", have multiple forms conveying various levels of respect, and depending on the context the choice of verb can be offensive: for example, the condescending verb yaru for "to give" is perfectly acceptable when giving food to a dog or watering a plant, but cannot be used towards an equal or superior without serious offense. Similar levels of politeness also apply to pronouns, with some pronouns for "you", including kisama (貴様, "my Lord"), temae (手前, "we/us" (archaic)), otaku (Your Respected House, roughly equivalent to the word "thou", but which has come to mean "obsessive nerd" in modern Japanese) onushi (お主, "master") and omae (お前;, "honorable one in front of me") have become offensive due to repeated sarcastic or inappropriate usage. These make it entirely possible to unintentionally gravely insult someone without using any profane words in the Western sense.

However, Japanese does have a number of patently offensive expressions which are banned in all broadcast media and frequently censored in text: examples include manko (マンコ, "vagina") and chinpo (チンポ, "penis"). If used, these and other offensive expressions are commonly printed with the central character replaced by the placeholder sign maru (〇), so manko becomes ma-ko (マ〇コ). This is directly equivalent to writing "fuck" as "f**k". For most parts, these terms carry only their literal meanings and cannot be used as insults per se, but some words like kusottare (糞っ垂れ, "shit-drip") and yariman (やり万, "whore") are strong invective on par with anything found in English. Milder exclamations allowed on TV include baka (ばか, "stupid, nonsense"), bakayarō (バカヤロー, "idiot") and chikushō (畜生, beast).

Other extremely offensive words banned by the Japanese broadcasting code include mekura (盲, "blind"), tsunbo (聾, "deaf"), oshi (唖, deaf-mute), kichigai (気違い, "crazy"), and hakuchi (白痴, moron/retard).

Many other offensive words relate to Japan's old caste system. Words such as hinin (非人, nonhuman) and eta (穢多, plenty of filth) refer to the burakumin.

One possible reason offered for the supposed paucity of profanity is of the belief of Kotodama (言霊), lit. word spirits. Kotodama appear when spoken, written, or even thought and they can easily be "tainted" with ill intentions and evil spirits. Even today, Japanese avoid words that imply harm to keep away tainted evil Kotodama. This, of course, can be reversed to bring about harm to someone or something, and common everyday words are used profanely in this case. See also kami, or the Japanese term for 'spirit'.

Esperanto

It is ironic that the artificial language that was intended to bring peace to the world would have profane expressions. [2]

• Fikiĝu (Fuck you)
• Forfikiĝu (Fuck off)
• Iru inferen (Go to Hell)
• Damne (Damn)
• Fek' (Shit)
• Anusulo (Asshole {As in "He is an asshole."})
• Putino (Whore)
• Kaco (Penis {vulgar})
• Piĉo (Vagina {vulgar})

Indian subcontinent

Although there is a wide diversity of languages in the Indian subcontinent, most of the highly offensive swear words in the Indo-Aryan languages are meant to insult the opponent's family members and usually are implicative of incest. This may be a reflection of the high importance given to family relations. The most popular words are those linked to Hindi and Urdu. However, the profanity is generic across many countries. Commonly used words are:

• Lund , loda, lauda'or lun (Hindi or Urdu), meaning penis.
• Chut or choot, meaning cunt.
• Chod, equivalent to fuck (noun form).
• Gaand, meaning arse.
• chuchi, boobs.
• Benchod, Sister fucker.
• Bhose, Pussy.

These words are linked to the names of relationships to create extremely vulgar words. They are also used directly while targeting a person; for instance, gandoo, meaning a man who "chases arse"—i.e., a homosexual. Chutiya, meaning a "pussy chaser" (a ridiculous person), is used similarly. All these words are used by people of these countries under extreme anger or distress.

In Sanskrit, the main verb for "to fuck" is yabhati. The word occurs in a number of literary contexts, including the Vedic Aśvamedha ritual.

In Dravidian languages, like Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada, words meaning to insult the family are almost non-existent. Even a highly estranged man would not think of abusing his opponent's family, as the family is usually irrelevant to the argument.

The softer profanties equate people to animals, or target their mental abilities. For example:

• Gadha (donkey) refers to an idiot or a stupid person.
• Kutta (dog) refers to a wild, uncivilized person.
• Ullu (owl) refers to a fool.
• Suar (pig) refers to a dirty person.
• Bewaqoof (Urdu) means fool.
• Paaji (Urdu) means naïve; this shouldn't be confused with bhraaji, which means brother in Punjabi.
• Chhakka (Hindi) means faggot
• Pagal (Hindi/Urdu) means mentally challenged.
• Kameena / Zaleel (Urdu) means immoral person.
• Haraami (Urdu) means 'Bastard' but is commonly refered to a person who shows ingratitude. ( I am an Indian and that is the true meaning of this profanity. You can get it verified before deleting it)
• Chootia (Hindi) means moron
• Maderchod(hindi) means mother fucker or son of a bitch
• Gaandloda (hindi/urdu) means asshole

There are also some female-specific words, like churail and dayen, both of which mean witch.

Computers

A computer programming language called fuckfuck has been devised using the same idea, based on another computer language known as Brainfuck, which actually has more to do with confusing the programmer (having only 8 operations), hence the name.

The Windows 2000 source code also contains many profane words.

American Sign Language (ASL)

ASL, the sign language used by the Deaf Community throughout most of North America, has a rich vocabulary of terms, which include profanity and cursing.

Examples

• The back of dominant open b-handshape flipped out under chin means "fuck you." Using a middle finger (the 'classic' flipping of the bird) would get your point across just as well too.

• The thumb/index finger side of a b-handshape struck against the side of the mouth or chin means "bitch" (contact point is the side of the index finger). "Bastard" can be produced by doing the same but on the forehead.

• Touching p-handshape middle finger to the nose tip then bringing it out to "F" (done with one hand) means "piss off", or, literally, “PENIS F”. This sign creates the meaning of “piss off” by combining the sign for "penis" and abbreviating "O-F-F-" by using simply one "F".

• Holding a d-handshape in front of the body with the index finger pointing somewhat forward and to the left and the palm pointing somewhat down, then shoving the hand quickly down and to the right as if condemning someone to hell signifies “Damn” The sign properly ends pointing mostly down and off to the right a bit. Doing this sign with an "H" means "hell."

See also

• List of profane words
• Mandarin slang
• Singapore sexual slang terminology
• Gràisgealachd
• Latin profanity
• Profanity in ASL
• List of ethnic slurs