Ridiculous Verbs: Mat-Analysis

The article is devoted to the cluster of obscene vocabulary, called in ancient times “ridiculous verbs”, and its functioning in the cultural space. The purpose of the work is to identify semantic connections that provide absurd verbs with a place in culture and language. From the point of view of ethics, swearing appears as a forced evil, having its own anti-normative functionality and its own aesthetics. In the social interpretation, “ridiculous verbs” are swearing or obscenities that reveal a large-scale problem of ethnocultural nature. The dual nature of obscene vocabulary is revealed: 1) obscenity is war, 2) obscenity is language. In a state of war, all this becomes as appropriate and justified as obscenity becomes absurd in a state of peace. Obscene vocabulary reforms language, replacing words with gestures. The history of the issue reveals the immutability of obscene vocabulary forms over a long period of time. The problem of absurd verbs allows us to talk about a certain similarity between obscenity and poetry from the point of view of language (hence the concept of the obscene part); as well as between obscenity and iconography from the point of view of gesture. We can also talk about the positive function of obscenities when they become a sign of a sign, i.e. they carry a cultural connotation of something other than invective. Methodologically, our study is a combination of textual and extra-textual interpretation, conceptual analysis, and analysis of dictionary entries using the etymological context. Comparison with the norm at the level of individual lexical units allows us to speak of a certain set of comparative dimensions. The results of the study showed that, while challenging the norm, swearing actually reminds us of it, being in essence a borderline phenomenon, a transitional process in language and culture, and a marker of those ideal entities that are currently lacking in language and culture.