A Dictionary of Cathartic Profanity

This is a project to build a global dictionary of Cathartic Profanity, cross-referenced via English.

The site works as follows:

• each language is one page in the language: category.
• each term is one paragraph, in alphabetical order, with an English translation.
• anonymous edits are allowed.

Start a new language. The page name should be the ISO language code. The page title should be the full name of the language in localized / English forms, e.g. "Nederlands / Dutch".

Language

Author

Started

English / English

Alex McGregor

28 Aug 2009 12:53

Polski / Polish

pieterh

02 Sep 2009 17:37

From Wikipedia:

Steven Pinker's book The Stuff of Thought breaks profanity down into five categories including "Cathartic profanity – when something bad happens like coffee spilling, people curse. One evolutionary theory asserts it is meant to tell the audience that you're undergoing a negative emotion. (Example: Aww, fucker!, Damn this coffee)"

According to Pinker, the content of profane language can also be broken into five categories of negative emotion, of which we cover:

• The Supernatural – Evokes emotions of awe & fear. (Examples: damn, hell, Christ)
• Bodily effluvia & organs – Evokes disgust, since effluvia are major disease vectors. (Examples: shit, piss, asshole)
• Sexuality – Evokes images of revulsion at depravity. Profanity of a sexual nature conjures images of illegitimate or exploitive sexuality, jealousy, etc. (Examples: fuck, cunt, prick, pussy, cock, twat)