This volume is extensive, offering plenty of background on the sociolinguistics of offensive language and fascinating detail on how young Polish speakers use it in the 2020s. Zarzycki sets this in theoretical, social, political, and cultural context. It begins with an in-depth review of swearing analysis theory, drawing on the excellent work of Kirsti Beers Fägersten and others, covering issues like dysphemism, euphemisms (pocałuj mnie w cztery litery ‘kiss my four letters’), emotional impact, and release.
Readers with knowledge of Polish and related Slavic languages will home in on the offensive words and their translations, of course noticing the changes in onomatopoeia and resonance. Just as in Polish there are alternatives to using the k-word (kurwa, lit. ‘whore’) as punctuation, English speakers may make more creative choices than the f-word: but for that, Polish does perhaps mine a richer seam of synonyms.
It would be interesting to know why the large, valuable survey of how Kraków school and university students swear in Polish was conducted in English. As Zarzycki states, the additional language could create distance from the offensive words, but using it may have prevented respondents from expressing themselves clearly. The appendices detail their refreshing range of responses, from jokey emojis to thoughtful mini-essays.
Larger claims are questioned, for instance, that men are more comfortable using offensive words than women. Still, the analysis could be more nuanced for sexuality and gender diversity, with perhaps one more round of proofing. The fact that a local version of English’s racially provocative n-word (czarnuch) is found highly offensive is noted. Readers gain insight into Poland’s media and public life through the colourful language of figures like Magdalena Gessler (perhaps the Polish Gordon Ramsay?). On the local MasterChef she assessed a candidate’s fried goat cheese: “you feel like you’re smelling a goat from behind”. Public figures are still expected to swear less. Nevertheless, future president Kaczyński’s impatience with an interlocutor on the campaign trail (spieprzaj dziadu ‘fuck off, beggar!’) established itself in the language, extending to games like The Witcher.
Language interaction, from church language entering Polish via Czech, to Russicisms, to Ponglish may be of interest to readers in English. For instance, the transliterated vulgarism madafaka is used, but motherfucker in English had friendly connotations for rap fans.
A highlight is the many examples of how offensive words resonate differently in particular subgroups or contexts. As a linguist who lived in Poland in the 1990s and 2000s, I found this book a useful update, particularly on offensive language as a form of resistance. The latter includes the women’s strike when abortion law was restricted in 2020 and Cypis’s lyric Jebać Putina ‘Fuck Putin’ to protest Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
By comparing the self-reported findings to five online Polish corpus tools, Zarzycki shows how his 236 respondents find many words—other than the n-word—much less offensive than the tools suggest. This sentiment and hate detection analysis is a potentially fruitful area for further research with other age groups in Poland and beyond.
