What kind of profanity is this?

Regular readers will be familiar with Strong Language, a group blog about swearing that I co-founded with James Harbeck in 2014. If you’re interested in swearing as a linguistic or cultural phenomenon, I recommend bookmarking or subscribing to it.

New posts by our excellent contributors are less frequent now, but that makes it easier to catch up if you haven’t visited before or feel like browsing the archives. The blog has over 400 posts: fascinating and colourful explorations of profanity for readers not averse to such material.

I also contribute to Strong Language now and then, and this post on Sentence first introduces the last few that I wrote. What follows below is not very sweary – there’s one reference to a strong swear – but if this type of language freaks you out like it does Ned Flanders, or just plain doesn’t interest you, you may prefer to bail out here.

From “Be-bop-a-Lisa” in Simpsons Comics no. 6 (1994). Script & pencils: Bill Morrison; Inks: Tim Bavington; Colours: Cindy Vance. Editor: Steve Vance

I’m interested in how people refer to swearing: as bad language, explicit language, dirty language, adult language, and so on. The adjectives form an intriguing set. ‘Strong bad mature filthy language’ examines the patterns that emerge and explains why I proposed Strong Language as the name for the blog.

The title of the present post, you may have twigged, alludes to Amy Winehouse and her song ‘Me & Mr Jones’, which contains a line I borrowed more directly for ‘What kind of “fuckery” is this?’. The post delves into that word’s meanings and use, originally literal but now usually (and variously) figurative.

Also in a pop-cultural vein, John Boorman’s 1987 drama film Hope and Glory has a scene that depicts swearing as a rite of passage for a group of boys in London during World War II. My short post puts the scene in context and discusses its effects.

Most recently, I wrote about a remarkably successful euphemism in ‘Another freaking f-word’. This use of freaking first appeared in 1928, as far as we know, so its centenary is just around the corner. In the post I look at why and where it has become so freaking popular.

#blogging #etymology #language #linguistics #popCulture #pragmatics #profanity #slang #strongLanguage #swearing #usage #words

#Profanity 0.17.0 has been released.

#FotoVorschlag
Alle Tassen im Schrank
»All cups in the cupboard«

People gift me #mugs quite a lot. There seems to be a theme. This is a weird prompt and a boring ass photo of my mugs. Enjoy!








#LionelRichie #profanity #AmazingAsFuck #EatABagOfDicks #FuckThisShit #ZeroFucksGiven #cunt #WatershipDown #BlackCat #BlackCats #crow #crows #corvid #corvids #mug #mugshot

Roblox Rolls Out AI-Powered Real-Time Rephrasing Of Profanity Within Chat

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://www.techdirt.com/2026/03/13/roblox-rolls-out-ai-powered-real-time-rephrasing-of-profanity-within-chat/

#Profanity version 0.16.0 of the console based #XMPP client written in C, has just been released!

This release brings fixes for OTR detection, OMEMO startup, overwriting new accounts when running multiple instances, reconnect when no account has been set up yet, adds a new /changes command that allows the user to see the modifications of the runtime configuration vs. the saved configuration among many other fixes and improvements. Make sure to have fun!

https://github.com/profanity-im/profanity/releases/tag/0.16.0

#PoweredByXMPP #RUNJBR #Jabber #TUI #Linux #Chat #Messenger

@Tanya Here are three examples that I've actually posted into the Fediverse (on another channel than the one I'm replying from now, so don't go looking for them). Mind you, they adhere to the alt-text rules for the Fediverse rather than those for websites and blogs, and yes, there is a difference.

Example no. 1: Meme directly based on one template with overlaid captions.
Screen capture from the live-action film The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, edited into an image macro. It shows a close-up of the actor Sean Bean as the character Boromir. He is speaking with a concerned expression on his face. His right hand has taken the shape of a ring with all fingers with the thumb and and index finger touching. The image has two large pieces of text. The one at the top is, “One does not simply,” and the one at the bottom continues with, “implement FEP-EF61.” An explanation of the meme template used in this picture and background information can be found in the post. If you are on Mastodon, Misskey or one of its forks, the post is hidden behind a summary and content warning. If you are on Pleroma, Akkoma, Friendica, Hubzilla or (streams), the explanations follow right below this image.

Example no. 2: Meme directly based on one template with extra space for captions.
Image macro, based on a digital photograph of a fluffy and very chubby calico cat sitting on the floor on its hindquarters and looking upward at the bowl of Fruit Loops in the bottom left corner of the image. At the top of the image, there is a very light grey space with a two-part caption. It starts with: “Daniel Supernault:<em> announces a TikTok clone for the Fediverse.” This is followed by a blank line and, “Fediverse users:”. Between the grey space and the image, there is a narrower white space with another caption that has been part of the image for longer than the grey space. The caption speaks for the cat, “bröther may i have some lööps”, with the “o”s being umlauts.

Example no. 3: Self-made collage using multiple templates (contains a Japanese profanity, though, but I didn't want to alter it).
Collage of captioned meme images of various kinds in two rows. In the top left, there are two smugly grinning Wojaks, facing half each other, half the audience. The one on the left has the diaspora* logo above his head and his hand on his chin in a pensive gesture. The one to his right is wearing a black tuxedo with a bowtie, and he has the Mastodon logo above his head. These two have a common caption below them: “We're beyond such peasantry as that filthy and grubby PHP. We demand only the best: Ruby on Rails.“ Slightly right of centre, still in the top row, there is a bearded Soyjak with glasses, crying with his mouth wide open, pink eyes and streams of tears running down his cheeks. He is facing towards the left. Above his head is the Pleroma logo. His caption is, in all-caps and ending in five exclamation marks, “Noooooooo, Elixir is the way to go and PostgreSQL!” In the top right, there is another bearded and bespectacled Wojak, facing towards the left again. This one is angry with the Misskey logo above his head. With the same open mouth as the one to his left, he shouts, “Utter heresy, there is no match for TypeScript and Vue.js, baka!” The bottom row is taken up by three creepy-looking brownish moths with glowing eyes. The left one is facing towards the right with the Friendica logo above it. The other two are facing towards the left with the logos of Hubzilla and the streams repository above them. Their common caption is, in huge all caps and with an umlaut, “Lämp”.

The original posts also have explanations in the post text for those who don't understand the image and the description which I expect to be the norm. They went into the post text because explanations must never go into the alt-text, and because they wouldn't fit into a maximum of 1,500 characters anyway. I would post these explanations as well, but you've only asked for alt-texts, and besides, these explanations tend to be even longer than the alt-texts.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #FediMeme #FediMemes #FediverseMeme #FediverseMemes #Profanity #Swearing #CWProfanity #CWSwearing