Obscene Words Research Articles

FROM THE CONCEPT OF THE DRAFT POLICE CHARTER OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE TO ITS STRUCTURE AND CONTENT: VIEWS OF MEMBERS OF THE COMMISSION OF SENATOR A.A. MAKAROV (1906-1917). PART 5. RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE POLICE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE TO MAINTAIN IMPROVEMENT AND ORDER IN PUBLIC PLACES (STREETS, SQUARES, BOULEVARDS, EMBANKMENTS, BRIDGES, CANALS, HIGHWAYS AND WATERWAYS)

The complex of responsibilities assigned to the police by the norms of the fourth section of the draft Police Charter is considered. These responsibilities are related, on the one hand, to monitoring the improvement of streets, squares, boulevards, embankments, piers, as well as other components of the infrastructure of the population, and, on the other hand, to ensuring the personal safety of the population and maintaining public order in crowded places. Prevention of unreasonable noise, singing, shouting, rioting, any unauthorized acts aimed at violence and causing disturbance on the streets, squares or other public places, or at least outside these places, but in violation of public order and tranquility. The measures taken by the police in relation to direct traffic participants and vehicle owners are highlighted. Separately, such areas of police activity are designated as ensuring a healthy lifestyle for citizens: preventing drunkenness; confiscation of mentally ill persons and persons who are intoxicated in public places; suppression of the use of obscene words and expressions, attempts to abuse domestic animals. Separately, the author highlights purely police means of establishing proper order in public places, including dispersing unruly crowds and attracting troops. The responsibilities of the police of the Russian Empire to prevent beggary, loitering, measures taken to prevent these offenses, as well as to suppress the unlawful behavior of gypsies (arrangement of tents, tents, leading a nomadic lifestyle) are given.

АНГЛО-ШОТЛАНДСКАЯ БАЛЛАДА В СВЕТЕ СМЕНЫ ПЕРЕВОДЧЕСКИХ ПАРАДИГМ: ДВА ВЕКА ПЕРЕВОДА

Translation of a poetic text has always attracted the eye of translators and poets who wanted to present the best works of foreign cultures to their compatriots. Due to that the folklore text, which reflects the distinctive features of a different culture, its history and beliefs, long ago became a special object of attention. At different stages of the development of translators’ art, there were different approaches to the interpretation of a literary text. In some eras, the translation was word for word, during other periods it was considered correct to improve the original text. Some linguists believed that literary text was untranslatable. However, in the 20th century, translation finally evolved into a science and the foundations of a systematic approach to translation were developed. The history of ballad translations in Russia goes back two centuries. Various poets worked with these texts and their approaches were often different. In some cases, translators transformed realities which they met int elements of their own culture, changed the rhythmic and organizational structure of the text, and even removed a few couplets. This approach is characteristic of the entire 19th century. Then the paradigm changes: other specialists try to preserve the original sound of the ballads, the archaic language and the syntax characteristic of ballads. Poetry translators of the 20th century set and gradually reach these goals, although some of them still translate within the framework of the approach of the period of classicism and make their own improvements to the text. The last stage is the latest translations. The disappearance of strict censorship gives the translator the opportunity to translate folk poetry using folk, colloquial, sometimes obscene words, although the appropriateness of their use should be carefully weighed in each case. Our investigation allows us to conclude that the development of approaches to ballad translation follows the traditional periodization of paradigms and yet some problems of poetic translation are still open.

CREATING HATE SPEECH DETECTION MODEL BY USING MACHINE LEARNING METHODS

This research paper describes the using machine learning algorithms to pre-identify profanity in online content due to concerns about the growing use of profanity on social networks such as Twitter. In this article, comparative studies were carried out to develop special software using machine learning methods for effective detection and monitoring of hate speech in order to minimize the negative impact of hate speech on people and communities. The scientific novelty of this research work an algorithm defined that provides the most effective accuracy of automatic detection of obscene words among machine learning algorithms. The result of the experiment, the effectiveness of the above methods for detecting offensive words evaluated on Twitter. The purpose of this article is to compile a data set of hate speech collected from various sources and approved by experts to ensure that the obscene words detection model works effectively. The practical significance of this research work, using machine learning methods, a comprehensive method for detecting profanity on Twitter proposed, a detection model and software for recognizing complex elements of profanity in online comments are also provided.

A corpus-based study of euphemising body parts in Arabic subtitles

Drawing on prior taboo classifications and euphemism strategies, this study investigates the euphemisms that result from subtitling private body part-related taboo words (PBPRTW). The study utilised quantitative (frequencies and percentages) and qualitative approaches based on subtitler’s linguistic choices and the reasons behind their selection. The sample comprises 75 Hollywood feature films and their Arabic correspondences based on six criteria. The study adopts Pinker’s (2007) and McEnery’s (2006) for taboo language classifications and Al-Adwan’s typology for euphemism strategies, which draws upon Williams (1975), Warren (1992), and Davies (2003). The PBPRTW were selected on the basis of their frequent occurrence in the corpus, appearing more than 150 times. They serve various functions, including descriptive, abusive, referential, and idiomatic. The findings indicated that only approximately 5% of obscene words are retained in Arabic subtitles, while 95% of the English subtitles in the corpus are toned down, euphemised, or omitted. The study identified seven euphemistic strategies employed in dealing with PBPRTW in Arabic subtitles: metaphorical transfer, preservation, implication, metonymy, semantic misrepresentation, and widening. These findings have some implications for subtitlers when translating PBPRTW.

Criminal Accountability for Actors and Legal Protection for Online Cat Calling Criminal Victims

The crime of sexual harassment is divided into 2 (two), namely verbal harassment and non-verbal harassment. One form of verbal sexual harassment is known as Cat Calling, which means harassment in a public space by giving obscene words related to sexuality where many of the victims are women. The increase in online internet-based technology and information has made cat calling sexual harassment common in the form of comments, photos and videos circulating on online social media. Criminal law in Indonesia which contains acts that can be categorized as sexual harassment is generally regulated in the Criminal Code (KUHP) with the addition of Law Number 19 of 2016 concerning Amendments to Law Number 11 of 2008 concerning Information and Transactions Electronically (UU ITE) when done online. Most recently, sexual harassment or sexual violence or sexual violence is regulated in Law Number 12 of 2022 concerning Crimes of Sexual Violence. Cat Calling perpetrators can be held criminally responsible in accordance with applicable laws and regulations accompanied by strict sanctions in an effort to prevent and eradicate criminal acts of online Cat Calling sexual harassment and legal protection for victims of Cat Calling online is absolutely necessary to repair the trauma experienced by victims

THE USE OF THE WORD TABOO ON SOCIAL MEDIA: A FORENSIC LINGUISTIC STUDY

The freedom in social media communication have not been responded wisely by the citizen of the net (netizen). Sometimes while expressing themselves in the social media, netizens used the taboo words which potentially break the law. The problems chosen in this research is a type of taboo words used by the netizen and also whether these expressed words have a potential to violate the law. The method to collect the data is “Simak bebas libat cakap“(SBLC), it is a method where there is no active communication between interviewer and interviewee but it is only taken the data from internet, then to transcribe the taken data. The following step is analyzing data which used referential equivalent method, then the results of the analysis were presented informally. The findings showed that taboo words used in social media consisted of: (1) obscene words, (2) vulgar language, and (3) nick name and insult. These taboo words potentially violate the government regulation of the Republic Indonesia number 11 of 2008 concerning electronic information and transactions article 27 paragraph (3) and article 45 paragraph (1) as well as article 310 section (1) and article 311 section (1) of the Indonesian Criminal Code concerning defamation. Therefore, netizens must be careful in the way how communicate.

Цинизм как базовая ценность современного англоязычного комического дискурса

The work is aimed at identifying and analyzing the main humorous characteristics of the axiological concept of cynicism. The relevance of the study is predetermined by the fact that cynicism is considered to be an important value of humorous discourse. This work develops an axiological approach for studying humor which consists of defining the reaction of the audience to cynicism (humorous or non-humorous, positive or negative), distinguishing value features of the axiological concept of cynicism (based on literature on cynicism, definitions in dictionaries, and analysis of data.), analyzing the language means used to express the axiological concept of cynicism, determining the conceptual opposition of the axiological concept of cynicism in a particular context, determining the archetype of the corresponding character to assess the level of possible empathy of the audience for a humorous object. The data analyzed in this article comprise recordings and scripts of more than 70 stand-up specials which are more than 4500 minutes long and more than 500 episodes of various sitcoms which are more than 12,500 minutes long. The research showed that in many cases manifestation of cynicism was accompanied by laughter and moderate applauding while in most cases cynicism caused only laughter. Cynicism is aimed at ridiculing such anti-values as insincerity, shame, stupidity, lust. The main cognitive features of the axiological concept of cynicism within the framework of humorous discourse include honesty and rudeness. In its extreme form (dark humor), cynicism can be considered as a significant lack of humanity. The research also found that the axiological concept of cynicism within the framework of humorous discourse is actualized through insulting people, describing taboo processes and violating the norms and principles of social interaction. Insulting is carried out through a humiliating assessment of actions or states of a person, a true designation of a person and a response to socially disapproved behavior. The main taboo topics are masturbation, deurination, flatulence, death, and declaring sexual intention. The main cases of violating norms and principles of social interaction include deviation from standard patterns of behavior and ridiculing cliched statements. The axiological concept of cynicism is usually expressed through obscene words, insulting words, verbs denoting corresponding processes, new metaphors, similes, irony, etc. Moreover, in modern English sitcoms some of main characters behave cynically.

SPEECH ACTS OF CONTROL IN ENGLISH DOMINANT PARENTAL DISCOURSE

The paper deals with typology, functioning and verbal representation of speech acts of control in English dominant parental discourse. The concept of speech acts of control has been clarified then directive of order, directive of demand, directive of prohibition and directive of warning types have been singled out. The analysis of linguistic forms of directive of order, directive of demand, directive of prohibition and directive of warning utilized by parents in dominant communication has been carried out. The analysis of the control speech acts by levels of directness in dominant parental discourse reveals the prevalence of direct mode stipulated by parental higher social position and authority. It was found out that linguistic forms of directives of order are affirmative imperative constructions and negative imperative constructions, lexico-grammatical level of directives of order are represented by imperative sentences comprising verbs that call for action completion or denote action cessation. It was revealed that when conveying categorical requirements, impolite and even disrespectful attitude, directives of order include negative-evaluative adjectives, obscene words. Linguistic expression of directives of demand are affirmative utterances containing volitional verbs. Directives of prohibition in dominant parental discourse are represented by affirmative constructions with verbs naming ban and disallowance. The category of modality is also employed for verbal representation of the directive of prohibition. The directives of warning are represented by imperative and affirmative constructions with modal verbs of obligation, negative imperative constructions and affirmative constructions with prohibitive nomination, negative constructions of egocentric character. The analysis of the lexical and syntactic means that comprise speech acts of control makes it possible to single out structural models containing addressing. This paper aims to compensate for the lacunae that are currently present in the field of English dominant parental discourse study in terms of speech act representation.

KEKERASAN VERBAL DALAM KASUS PENGANIAYAAN ADE ARMANDO DI TWITTER

Content on social media spreads almost unstoppably, both positive and negative. Due to its virtual nature as well as the fading culture of politeness in society, it can now be seen that uploads or comments in it tend to display harsh and even obscene words called verbal violence. This study aims to determine the form of language used in social media and comments on posts on Twitter social media. This research method uses a qualitative descriptive method. The source of research data comes from social media Twitter, while the data is in the form of uploads and comments on verbal violence on Twitter. The data collection technique uses documentation techniques. Data analysis used qualitative analysis techniques and techniques for checking the validity of the data which was carried out by checking the persistence of observation and checking techniques. The results showed that the form of language used in Twitter sentences has accuracy, clarity, and straightforwardness. While comments on posts on Twitter in the form of verbal violence include: insults, swearing, hyperbole, dysphemism, stigmatization, and associations in animals. The verbal violence on Twitter shows that the Indonesian people do not care about the polite language culture, so that it becomes input for the government and community leaders to find a complete solution in overcoming this quite worrying problem.

Виртуальная коммуникация как ведущий формат социального общения молодежи

The features of the communicative behavior of young people in the network discursive space are considered. The purpose of the study is to assess the characteristic linguistic features of young people in social networks. The research material was the data of a questionnaire aimed at identifying the motives and goals of young people in network communication. About 150 people (students of different faculties and courses) were interviewed. An anonymous survey was conducted by 100 schoolchildren (the age of teenagers ranged from 12 to 17 years). On the youth platforms of the Runet, data from Internet discussions and comments from communication participants are collected. The results of the study showed that the reconstruction of the portrait of the linguistic personality of a young user of social networks is associated with the following factors. Firstly, a special digital linguistic personality is being formed in the Internet space. It acts as a synthesis of a real linguistic personality with its constructed image. It has its own language features. They are revealed in a new vocabulary, modified by the youth itself, slang. A modern student in the context of social networks has a synthesis of two spheres – educational and communicative. The vocabulary of a modern teenager is reduced to simple colloquial expressions, often profanity (obscene words), jargon. The speech of teenagers has become very everyday and real. Most words of modern slang have several features: these are mostly abbreviated and borrowed words. The dynamism of the modern world is reflected in the very frequent use of nouns with event meaning and verbs. Secondly, against this background, the text is increasingly accompanied by illustrations, stickers, emoticons and many others. The importance of social networks for the self-expression of young people is emphasized.

“SC*RY!”: ASTERISK IN PRINTED UNPRINTABLE ABUSIVE WORDS

The article raises the question of the reasonability of replacing the vowel with an asterisk in the terms of offense in the media and communication. The actual example from the Internet global computer network shows a true role of the asterisk* in print. It has been argued that such substitution may have even more harmful effect on the reader, than an unchanged swear word. Other means of graphical euphemization of obscene word forms are considered as well, e.g., @, #, $ symbols instead of one of the letters of a swear word. QWERTY-effect is discussed in relation to Russian and foreign swear words. The following questions are raised: which symbols are used for euphemization of printed abusive words, how is the choice made and which symbols are completely inappropriate for this? A mean for complete masking of obscene words using a mark [censored] is suggested.

Towards an YouTube Verified Content System based on Blockchain Approach

YouTube connects people with each other through an online video sharing service platform. With the great devel-opment of the entertainment industry, content on YouTube is accessible to many people of different ages. However, verifying the content posted on YouTube is clean or not is a difficult problem. Dirty content is violent, pornographic and vulgar content that causes serious psychological harm to the segment of users under the age of 18, i.e., especially those of an age who are not yet aware of the harmful effects of content. Toxic will bring to the child’s behavior. Agree that Google (i.e., YouTube) has developed a YouTube Kid application where the videos are only for children under the age of 13. However, cultural and educational differences between regions strongly influence the choice of children. Select content for children. Therefore, the content restrictions on the YouTube Kid application have not yet met all the requirements of parents around the world. There have been many development directions to identify videos containing malicious content based on deep learning. However, there is no method to build a tool to support parents of children to share and identify videos with objectionable content (e.g., violence, pornography, obscene words) on the YouTube platform. In this research paper, we introduce YVC, a YouTube-verified content platform by applying blockchain’s distributed, public validation. This tool helps parents validate YouTube content and issue a report to reduce dirty content on YouTube. To demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach, we implement the proof-of-concept in the three most popular EVM platforms: Ethereum, Fantom, and the Binance smart chain. Compared to the YouTube Kids (i.e., the most common shared video platform for the under 13-year-old kid), our approach is able to capture the video preferences of the parents covering the difference areas/countries.

Quranic verses in "Divani lugat at-Turk" and its meaning in the translation of the ancient Quran

The article examines the verses of the Koran in "Divani lugat at-Turk". The suras and verses of the Qur'an are not fully presented in this book. It turned out that these are only excerpts from poetry. Passages from verses were used to explain the rules of the Turkic language. In the course of this research, it became clear that the author is deeply familiar with the teachings of the Qur'an. The author says that when reading the Qur'an aloud among the Turks, one must be very careful and pay attention to etiquette. He points out that some verses in Arabic are obscene words in Turkic and warns that Turks who do not know Arabic may accept these words directly. Passages from the verses of the Qur'an were taken from which sura and which verses were identified and numbered. The translation of the verses is given with the translation of the ancient Koran and translation into the modern Kazakh language.

Rapid Onset Functional Tic-Like Behaviors in Young Females During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Rapid Onset Functional Tic-Like Behaviors in Young Females During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Communication Patterns of Indonesian Diaspora Women in Their Mixed Culture Families

This research underlines the communication patterns of Indonesian diaspora women in their mixed culture families and how they use these patterns in Australia. There are some differences in interpreting meanings because of the differences in language and culture. Thus, researchers are interested in examining communication patterns experienced by these diaspora women who live in Australia. The research was conducted through a qualitative method with a phenomenological approach. Data collection techniques used were in-depth interviews with 13 Indonesian women who had been living in Australia for more than 5 years and observation and documentation studies. The study showed that the communication patterns of Indonesian diaspora women living within their mixed culture families consist mainly of verbal communication classified into five categories: (1) pure English, (2) mixed language, (3) unstructured grammar English, (4) compliments and appreciation, and (5) obscene words or swearing.

“Don’t Be Abashed Reading This”: Shadow of Barkov in the Texts of Dostoevsky

The subject of research in this article is a partially crossed out portion of a letter from Fyodor Dostoevsky to his brother Mikhail dated September 30, 1844. This letter communicates his decision to leave the military service and devote himself to professional literary work. The entry was first reproduced in the edition of Dostoevsky's correspondence prepared by A. S. Dolinin, and then in the academic Complete Works. However, this was done with distortions and without proper commentary. As a result, the entry was perceived by readers as a rude expletive, which included slang, obscene vocabulary, and insults to the guardian of the Dostoevskys, P. A. Karepin, who opposed the switch of his ward to a literary path and was in no hurry to provide him with financial assistance. Textual analysis of the record about Karepin demonstrated that the strikethrough was made twice — by Dostoevsky himself at the time of writing the letter, and almost 40 years later by his widow, who was preparing the letters for publication. Due to her shyness, A. G. Dostoevskaya could not tolerate obscene words contained in the body of the letter, and she removed them with a thick strikethrough, while encrypting their meaning using shorthand. The restoration of the complete record made it possible to determine the source of the quote, namely, the “indecent” poem “Luka Mudishchev,” written in the post-Pushkin period and attributed to Ivan Barkov, but not written by him. The fact that Dostoevsky knew this poem by 1844 narrows down the range of its dating. In the heat of his “struggle” with Karepin, who criticizes the “abstract laziness and bliss of Shakespeare's dreams,” the novice writer turns the obscene satirical language of Barkoviana against his guardian in a sharp pamphlet style. Continuing his observations on common people's speech in the Siberian Notebook and the Writer’s Diary, Dostoevsky came to a paradoxical conclusion about the combination of profanity and chastity in the Russian people. The writer’s viewpoint on this matter was not clear to his contemporaries and was ridiculed in journalism and caricature.

CONCEPTUAL EQUIVALENCE OF COLLOQUIALISMS IN CROSS-CULTURAL CINEMATIC DISCOURSE AS A TRANSLATION CHALLENGE

The article considers the specifics of colloquialisms functioning in English cinematic discourse that definesthe choice of translation strategies for representing them in Ukrainian films in order to preserve the conceptualequivalence in cross-cultural cinematic discourse. The research methodology, which incorporates generalscientific methods of analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction as well as linguistic methods of contextual,lexical, stylistic and pragmatic analyses, resulted in determining the theoretical background of the study, selectingillustrative research material and suggesting the country-specific meaning of colloquialisms used in Englishcinematic discourse. Colloquialisms, understood as informal words or expressions that are more suitable for usein speech than in writing, contain a lot of dialectal words, slang, jargon and obscene words, which are clearlydistinct from each other. Colloquialisms, formed by compounding (44%), shortening (40%), rhyming (10%)and affixation (6%), perform two main functions: emotion-expressive and image-сreating. The methods oftranslation analysis helped define the specifics of reproduction of colloquialisms in cross-cultural English-Ukrainian cinematic discourse. Depending upon semantic and communicative appropriateness of colloquialismsin cross-cultural cinematic discourse, there have been distinguished three levels of their conceptual equivalencegraded as the upper degree (48%), the medium degree (48%) and the initial degree (14%).

Dong-gu Lee Jun-hyeong's Life of Resistance and Poetry

李濬衡(1875~1942)은 상해임시정부 초대 국무령을 지낸 李相龍(1858 ~1932)의 외아들이며 독립운동가이다. 그의 공로가 대한민국 정부로부터 인정을 받아 1990년 건국훈장 애국장이 추서되었다. 본 논문은 부친에 의해 가려진 이준형의 삶을 드러내고, 그가 남긴 시를 통해 미의식을 고찰하였다. 이준형은 부친을 따라 국내외에서 의병과 계몽, 독립운동을 했다. 특히 만주에서의 독립운동 시기는 일제의 핍박 속에 배고픔과 추위를 견디며 살아가는 자체가 저항의 의미를 지닌다고 할 것이다. 귀국 후에는 일제로부터 갖은 수모를 받으면서 『석주유고』 간행을 마무리하였고, 自靖함으로써 끝까지 일제를 인정하지 않은 저항의 삶을 살았다. 그의 시는 총 26제 41수가 문집에 실려 있다. 모두 만년에 도곡에 은둔하며 지은 시들이다. 그전에 지은 시도 분명히 있었을 것이나, 지금으로서는 상고할 길이 없으며 오랜 망명 생활에 모두 유실된 것으로 추측할 수밖에 없다. 그는 시에서 의리나 도리에서 비롯되는 정취와 세속의 음란한 말씨가 없는 산뜻한 음운을 강조하였다. 실제 그의 시를 살펴보면, 대부분 이러한 면을 충실히 실천하고 있는 것을 알 수 있다. 특히 평범한 일상에서 아름다움을 찾아내는 심미관이 탁월하였다.Lee Jun-hyeong(1875~1942), the only son of Lee Sang-yong(1858~ 1932), who served as the first state secretary of the Shanghai Provisional Government, is also an independence activist. His contribution was recognized by the Korean government and was awarded the Order of Merit for National Foundation in 1990. This paper reveals the hidden life of Lee Jun-hyeong and examines his aesthetic consciousness through his poems. Following his father, Lee Jun-hyeong performed righteous army, enlightenment, and independence movements at home and abroad. In particular, during the period of the independence movement in Manchuria, living with the hunger and cold amid the persecution of the Japanese imperialism itself has a meaning of resistance. After returning to Korea, he ended his publication of ‘Seokju Yugo’ under the humiliation of Japanese colonial rule and killed himself, living a life of resistance that refused to recognize Japan until the end. A total of 41 volumes of his poems are included in the collection, all of which were written in seclusion in Dogok in their later years. There must be some poems written before that, but there is no way to appeal for now because one can t help but assume that they all were lost in exile. In his poems, he emphasized the spirit of loyalty or morality, and a refreshing phonology without the worldly obscene words. If you look at his poems in practice, you can see that most of them are faithfully practicing these aspects. Especially, the aesthetic view of finding beauty in everyday life was outstanding.

ТRANSLATION PECULIARITIES OF SWEAR WORDS IN THE SUBTITLES TO FILM “FACK JU GÖHTE”

The article analyzes the peculiarities of the translation of German-language subtitles with the swear words into the Ukrainian language. The basic translation transformations, which a translator can use by transmitting obscene words and expressions during the movie translation are considered. The analysis was made of subtitles in English and Russian for the German comedy film “Fack ju Goethe” and a translation of the subtitles into Ukrainian was offered as well. The research identified major difficulties and possible mistakes by translating swear words into foreign languages.It is noted that audiovisual translation is a synthesized process of reproduction and adaptation of video material (film, series, TV show or videos available on the Internet) for the audience of foreign language culture, as a result of which the video material becomes clear and accessible to the recipient and transmits the original. According to the results of the analysis, the difficulty of translating obscene lexical items in films lies in the intercultural adaptation of the language of the characters to the linguistic culture of the target recipient, i.e. the ability to interpret replicas of foreign films so that they come as natural to the viewer. Our vision of solving problems regarding audiovisual translation in the Ukrainian linguistics, in particular in the discourse of the non-normative layer of vocabulary, has been formed.

Manner of death in individuals with expletive tattoos

In previous years individuals with tattoos were thought to have a higher rate of mental illness and risk taking behaviour. With the widespread adoption of tattoos in Western countries in recent years this negative association has been questioned. An issue which arises, however, is that “tattooing” is a heterogeneous activity that covers a wide spectrum of designs and motivations. To examine the characteristics of individuals presenting to medicolegal autopsy with “expletive tattoos” 19 individuals with tattoos that contained selected obscene words were compared to controls. Fifteen cases (79%) were found where deaths were classified as unnatural – 7 drug/alcohol related, 5 suicides, 2 accidents and 1 homicide. The decedents had an age range of 21–58 years, mean 39.7 years, with a male to female ratio of 14:1. Compared to controls there was a significantly increased number of unnatural deaths in the group with expletive tattoos (p < 0.01), with a tendency to involve males. This study has shown that expletive tattoos in a forensic context may be associated with unnatural and violent deaths, and that the study of particular subgroups of tattooed individuals may be useful in discerning specific trends that are unclear if “tattoos” are treated as a homogeneous phenomenon.