For the purpose of this project, we propose a usage-driven definition of profanity.
A swear word is a word you would not say in front of children; a word that can be socially offensive; it cannot be used on public TV and its use is limited by the government or other authorities; a word that, because of its offensive nature, leads people to replace it with less offensive, often creative, equivalents; a word that can be used to target specific groups of people. Swear words are often used as intensifiers, and the use of a swear word can create a humorous effect through shock or surprise.”
Additionally, we put forward eight principles for understanding profanity as a phenomenon in language and behaviour:
- 1) The Kurka wodna exception – some curse words are defined by the context of use and pronunciation rather than meaning
- 2) The Kutasy question – some curse words are perceived as offensive in their modern, but not original uses; but are the originals more offensive now because the current use is offensive?
- 3) The residual offensiveness of Kupa – some innocent words acquire a feeling of being offensive due to a relationship with a curse word “kupa kamieni”
- 4) The Sukin Sin conundrum – some words in a language foreign to the audience will be perceived as swear words by virtue of phonetic similarity to the profane vocabulary of their native tongue
- 5) The jebatka rule – the definition of a curse word depends on the adopted perspective (speaker vs. listener; in-group vs. out-group)
- 6) “Zaprzeproszeniem” disclaimer – the offensiveness of the swear word can be modified using discourse markers
- 7) The PIPa effect – the offensiveness of a curse word may be related to the novelty of its use
- 8) The nieogar exception – one grammatical form of a word can be more offensive than another (e.g. ogarnij się vs. nieogar)