Does pieprzyć o czymś (‘talk shit about something’) mean ‘mówić głupstwa’ (‘talk nonsense’)? A few comments on meaning

Abstract

The article centers on the expression pieprzyć (‘talk shit’) referring to speaking (thus in the title there appears pieprzyć o czymś (‘talk shit about something’)). The expression is analyzed as a predicate which can be included in the group of emotionally loaded verbs referring to imperfect, in some respect faulty speaking, similarly to pleść, że_ (‘to chatter that_’), mówić od rzeczy (‘talk nonsense’), chrzanić o czymś (‘talk crap about something’), pierniczyć o czymś (‘fib about something’), pierdolić o czymś (‘talk bullshit about something’). Since the analyzed expression is colloquial and emotional, it needs to be checked if these features have a purely pragmatic character, or if they accompany some feature of meaning which would allow one to understand the described word as epistemically deviant. The next task which is undertaken in the article consists in establishing the shape of the analyzed expression. The description of the verb presented in Grochowski’s Słownik polskich przekleństw i wulgaryzmów (Dictionary of Polish swear words and vulgarities) constitutes a point of departure in the discussion. The description is valuable in as much as the author applies an idea of describing linguistic units. Although delineating linguistic units with the analyzed word is an essential introduction to the semantic analysis, it was not the most important aim of the article. The interpretation presented here is not a detailed systematic characteristic of the verb pieprzyć, since it is limited to establishing its meaning and shedding some light on selected issues important in the analysis (e.g. whether ‘talk shit’ is semantically different from simply pieprzyć, or to put it in other words, does pieprzyć always mean ‘talk nonsense’, or can it mean solely ‘talk’?). Also the proposed definition is to be treated as a preliminary version of a formula which is to be further modified.