curseR: algorithmic generation of compound curse words

Overview

curseR generates novel combinations of curse words by combining existing English curse words with common nouns from several categories (e.g., professions, dwellings, receptacles, body parts). These combinations follow an algorithm for ‘building the perfect curse word’ outlined in:

Reilly J, Kelly A, Zuckerman B, Twigg P, Wells M, Jobson K, & Flurie M (2020) Building the perfect curse word: A psycholinguistic investigation of the form and meaning of taboo words. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. 27(1), 139-148. doi:10.3758/s13423-019-01685-8.

Our study was even featured in Discover Magazine!

Visit the article here:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/s13423-019-01685-8

I curated these curse words from several sources, including: https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~biglou/resources/bad-words.txt
https://github.com/coffee-and-fun/google-profanity-words

I omitted hate speech, racial, and ethnic slurs from the lookup databases. Users should be warned though that the list is still composed of some very strong profanity, including body part slang.

Installation

Install the development version of curseR from GitHub by typing the following in your console or script (make sure you have devtools installed):

# install.packages("devtools")
devtools::install_github("Reilly-ConceptsCognitionLab/curseR")

Run it!

There is only one function, and that function only takes one argument. The function is curse(), and the argument is just an integer specifying how many curse words you would like the function to return

curse()  #by default returns a character vector of three curse words
curse(10) #returns a character vector of 10 curse words
curse(50) #returns a character vector of 50 curse words

Get in touch

Email Jamie Reilly at reillyj at temple dot edu with any feedback on new and exciting combinations of curse words.