title: Tetris effect

text: A series of empirical studies with over 6,000 gamers has been conducted since 2010 into "game transfer phenomena" (GTP), a broadening of the Tetris effect concept coined by Angelica B. Ortiz de Gortari in her thesis. GTP is not limited to altered visual perceptions or mental processes but also includes auditory, tactile and kinaesthetic sensory perceptions, sensations of unreality, and automatic behaviours with video game content. GTP establishes the differences between endogenous (e.g., seeing images with closed eyes, hearing music in the head) and exogenous phenomena (e.g., seeing power bars above people's head, hearing sounds coming from objects associated with a video game) and between involuntary (e.g., saying something involuntarily with video game content) and voluntary behaviours (e.g., using slang from the video game for amusement).


title: Tetris effect

text: The earliest known reference to the term appears in Jeffrey Goldsmith's article, "This is Your Brain on "Tetris"", published in "Wired" in May 1994:


title: Tetris effect

text: No home was sweet without a Game Boy in 1990. That year, I stayed "for a week" with a friend in Tokyo, and Tetris enslaved my brain. At night, geometric shapes fell in the darkness as I lay on loaned tatami floor space. Days, I sat on a lavender suede sofa and played Tetris furiously. During rare jaunts from the house, I visually fit cars and trees and people together. [...]


title: Tetris effect

text: The Tetris effect is a biochemical, reductionistic metaphor, if you will, for curiosity, invention, the creative urge. To fit shapes together is to organize, to build, to make deals, to fix, to understand, to fold sheets. All of our mental activities are analogous, each as potentially addictive as the next.


title: Tetris effect

text: The term was rediscovered by Earling (1996), citing a use of the term by Garth Kidd in February 1996. Kidd described "after-images of the game for up to days afterwards" and "a tendency to identify everything in the world as being made of four squares and attempt to determine 'where it fits in'". Kidd attributed the origin of the term to computer-game players from Adelaide, Australia. The earliest description of the general phenomenon appears in Neil Gaiman's science fiction poem "Virus" (1987) in Digital Dreams. The ending of The Witness resembles the Tetris effect, where the unnamed protagonist is taken out of the game's virtual reality and sees the game's puzzles in real-world objects. It is also suggested as early as 1930 in Vladimir Nabokov’s novel The Defence, featuring a chess player who begins to see elements of Chess in real-world situations, eventually driving him to madness.


title: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (novel)

text: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is the first book in the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" comedy science fiction "trilogy of five books" by Douglas Adams, with a sixth book written by Eoin Colfer. The novel is an adaptation of the first four parts of Adams's radio series of the same name, centering on the adventures of the only man to survive the destruction of Earth; while roaming outer space, he comes to learn the truth behind Earth's existence. The novel was first published in London on 12 October 1979. It sold 250,000 copies in the first three months.


text: The namesake of the novel is "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", a fictional guide book for hitchhikers (inspired by the "Hitch-hiker's Guide to Europe") written in the form of an encyclopaedia.


text: The novel opens with an introduction describing the human race as a primitive and deeply unhappy species as well as the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy which provides information on every planet in the galaxy. Earthman Arthur Dent awakes in his home in West Country, England, to discover that the local planning council is trying to demolish his house to build a bypass and lies down in front of the bulldozer to stop it. His friend Ford Prefect—an alien researcher for "Guide" from a small planet in the vicinity of Betelgeuse who has been posing as an out-of-work actor from Guildford for 15 years—convinces the lead bureaucrat Mr. Prosser to lie down in front of the bulldozer for Arthur so that he can buy him six pints of beer at the pub. The construction crew begins demolishing the house anyway, but stop when a fleet of alien spaceships arrives on Earth undetected by human space agencies. The Vogons, a callous race of civil servants running the fleet, announce that they have come to demolish Earth to make way for a hyperspace expressway. Ford and Arthur hitch a ride from the Dentrassis, who serve as the cooks on the fleet, and are allowed onto a spaceship traveling to Barnard's Star. They are quickly discovered by the Vogons, who torture them by forcing them to listen to their poetry and then toss them out of an airlock.


text: Meanwhile Zaphod Beeblebrox, Ford's "semi-cousin" and the President of the Galaxy, steals the spaceship "Heart of Gold" at its unveiling with his human companion, Trillian. The "Heart of Gold" is enabled with an "Infinite Improbability Drive" that allows it to travel instantaneously to any point in space by simultaneously passing through every point in the universe at once. After being tossed into space, Arthur and Ford are rescued by the "Heart of Gold" as it travels using the Infinite Improbability Drive. Zaphod takes his passengers—Arthur, Ford, a depressed robot named Marvin, and Trillian—to a legendary planet known as Magrathea. Magrathea was said to have been a planet whose inhabitants specialized in custom-building planets for others, but vanished after becoming so rich that the rest of the galaxy became poor. Although Ford initially doubts that the planet is Magrathea, the planet's computers send them warning messages to leave before firing two nuclear missiles at the "Heart of Gold". Arthur inadvertently saves them by activating the Infinite Improbability Drive improperly, causing the "Heart of Gold" to remain in Magrathea and for the missiles to transform into a sperm whale and a bowl of petunias. The whale, which unsuccessfully tries to make sense of its existence as it falls to the surface, opens a passage underground on its impact. As the ship lands, Trillian's pet mice Frankie and Benjy escape.


text: On Magrathea, Zaphod, Ford, and Trillian venture down to the planet's interior while leaving Arthur and Marvin outside. Arthur is met by a man named Slartibartfast, who explains that the Magratheans have been in stasis to wait out an economic recession. The Magratheans temporarily reawakened to reconstruct a second version of Earth commissioned by mice, who were in fact the most intelligent species on Earth. In the factory workshop, Slartibartfast shows Arthur that in the distant past, a race of "hyperintelligent, pan-dimensional beings" created a supercomputer named Deep Thought to determine the answer to the "Ultimate Question to Life, the Universe, and Everything." Two philosophers representing a trade association, Majikthise and Vroomfondel, arrived and complained that the computer would remove uncertainty and end their jobs and demanded its deactivation. However, Deep Thought revealed that it would take 7.5 million years to complete its calculations and reasoned that during that time they could argue over what the computer's answer will be. 7.5 million years later the philosophers' descendants asked Deep Thought for the answer, which it announces is the number 42. Deep Thought tells its creators that the answer makes no sense to them because they didn't know what the "Ultimate Question" had been in the first place, so he suggested designing an even greater computer to determine what the Ultimate Question was. This computer is actually the planet Earth, which was constructed by the Magratheans, and was five minutes away from finishing its task and figuring out the Ultimate Question when the Vogons destroyed it. The hyperintelligent superbeings participated in the program as mice, performing experiments on humans while pretending to be experimented on.


text: Slartibartfast takes Arthur to see his friends, who are at a feast hosted by Trillian's pet mice. They reject the idea of building a new Earth to start the process over and offer to buy Arthur's brain in case it contains the question, leading to a fight when he declines. Zaphod saves Arthur from having his brain removed as police from the planet Blagulon Kappa arrive to arrest Zaphod. The mice, hoping to start a lucrative career on chat shows and the lecture circuit in their home dimension, decide to pretend that the Ultimate Question was "How many roads must a man walk down?" After the police repeatedly shoot at Zaphod, they suddenly die when their life-support systems short-circuit. Suspicious, Ford discovers on the surface that Marvin became bored and explained his view of the universe to the police officers' spaceship, causing it to commit suicide. The five leave Magrathea and decide to go to The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.


text: "The Illustrated Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" is a specially designed book made in 1994. It was first printed in the United Kingdom by Weidenfeld & Nicolson and in the United States by Harmony Books (who sold it for $42.00). It is an oversized book, and came in silver-foil "holographic" covers in both the UK and US markets. It features the first appearance of the 42 Puzzle, designed by Adams himself, a photograph of Adams and his literary agent Ed Victor as the two space cops, and many other designs by Kevin Davies, who has participated in many Hitchhiker's related projects since the stage productions in the late 1970s. Davies himself appears as Prosser. This edition is out of print – Adams bought up many remainder copies and sold them, autographed, on his website.


text: There have been three audiobook recordings of the novel. The first was an abridged edition (), recorded in the mid-1980s by Stephen Moore, best known for playing the voice of Marvin the Paranoid Android in the radio series, LP adaptations and in the TV series. In 1990, Adams himself recorded an unabridged edition for Dove Audiobooks (), later re-released by New Millennium Audio () in the United States and available from BBC Audiobooks in the United Kingdom. Also by arrangement with Dove, ISIS Publishing Ltd produced a numbered exclusive edition signed by Douglas Adams () in 1994. To tie-in with the 2005 film, actor Stephen Fry, the film's voice of the Guide, recorded a second abridged edition ().


text: The popularity of the radio series gave rise to a six-episode television series, directed and produced by Alan J. W. Bell, which first aired on BBC 2 in January and February 1981. It employed many of the actors from the radio series and was based mainly on the radio versions of Fits the First through Sixth. A second series was at one point planned, with a storyline, according to Alan Bell and Mark Wing-Davey that would have come from Adams's abandoned "Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen" project (instead of simply making a TV version of the second radio series). However, Adams got into disputes with the BBC (accounts differ: problems with budget, scripts, and having Alan Bell involved are all offered as causes), and the second series was never made. Elements of "Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen" were instead used in the third novel, "Life, the Universe and Everything".


text: The main cast was the same as the original radio series, except for David Dixon as Ford Prefect instead of McGivern, and Sandra Dickinson as Trillian instead of Sheridan.


text: "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" was adapted into a science fiction comedy film directed by Garth Jennings and released on 28 April 2005 in the UK, Australia and New Zealand, and on the following day in the United States and Canada. It was rolled out to cinemas worldwide during May, June, July, August and September.


text: The deliberately misnamed "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" ""Trilogy"" consists of six books (a hexalogy). Although the series was called a trilogy by readers, the word "trilogy" does not appear on the cover of the first three books and was not used until the publication of the fourth one. The first five books of the series were written by Adams:


text: On 16 September 2008 it was announced that Irish author Eoin Colfer would continue the series with a sixth novel. This book, entitled "And Another Thing...", was published in October 2009, on the 30th anniversary of the publication of the original novel.


text: Greg Costikyan reviewed "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" in "Ares Magazine" #6 and commented that ""The Hitchhiker's Guide" is written with superb English wit, far more humorous than any American sitcom." The Pequod rated the book a 9.5 (out of 10.0) and called it "an ingeniously silly sci-fi satire... It may not add up to much, but the jokes keep coming fast and furiously, and its enormous cultural influence (“Don’t Panic,” etc.) proves to be well-earned."


text: The "Babel fish", a creature used in the novel that feeds on brainwaves and can instantly translate alien languages, inspired the name of Babel Fish, the first free online language translator, which launched in 1997.


text: Radiohead's song "Paranoid Android" (1997) was named after Marvin's nickname, and the album it appears on, "OK Computer", is part of a line spoken by Zaphod to Eddie, the Heart of Gold's computer.


text: Towel Day is celebrated every year on 25 May as a tribute to Douglas Adams by his fans. On this day, fans openly carry a towel with them to demonstrate their appreciation for Adams and the book series. The commemoration was first held 25 May 2001, two weeks after Adams' death on 11 May.


text: When Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster was launched into space on the maiden flight of the Falcon Heavy rocket in February 2018, it had the words DON'T PANIC on the dashboard display and carried amongst other items a copy of the novel and a towel.


text: In 2022, the novel was included on the "Big Jubilee Read" list of 70 books by Commonwealth authors, selected to celebrate the Platinum Jubilee of Elizabeth II.


title: Future of an expanding universe

text: If dark energy—represented by the cosmological constant, a "constant" energy density filling space homogeneously, or scalar fields, such as quintessence or moduli, "dynamic" quantities whose energy density can vary in time and space—accelerates the expansion of the universe, then the space between clusters of galaxies will grow at an increasing rate. Redshift will stretch ancient, incoming photons (even gamma rays) to undetectably long wavelengths and low energies. Stars are expected to form normally for 10 to 10 (1–100 trillion) years, but eventually the supply of gas needed for star formation will be exhausted. As existing stars run out of fuel and cease to shine, the universe will slowly and inexorably grow darker. According to theories that predict proton decay, the stellar remnants left behind will disappear, leaving behind only black holes, which themselves eventually disappear as they emit Hawking radiation. Ultimately, if the universe reaches thermodynamic equilibrium, a state in which the temperature approaches a uniform value, no further work will be possible, resulting in a final heat death of the universe.


title: Future of an expanding universe

text: Infinite expansion does not determine the overall spatial curvature of the universe. It can be open (with negative spatial curvature), flat, or closed (positive spatial curvature), although if it is closed, sufficient dark energy must be present to counteract the gravitational forces or else the universe will end in a Big Crunch.


title: Future of an expanding universe

text: Observations of the cosmic background radiation by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe and the Planck mission suggest that the universe is spatially flat and has a significant amount of dark energy. In this case, the universe should continue to expand at an accelerating rate. The acceleration of the universe's expansion has also been confirmed by observations of distant supernovae. If, as in the concordance model of physical cosmology (Lambda-cold dark matter or ΛCDM), dark energy is in the form of a cosmological constant, the expansion will eventually become exponential, with the size of the universe doubling at a constant rate.


title: Future of an expanding universe

text: If the theory of inflation is true, the universe went through an episode dominated by a different form of dark energy in the first moments of the Big Bang; but inflation ended, indicating an equation of state much more complicated than those assumed so far for present-day dark energy. It is possible that the dark energy equation of state could change again resulting in an event that would have consequences which are extremely difficult to parametrize or predict.


title: Future of an expanding universe

text: In the 1970s, the future of an expanding universe was studied by the astrophysicist Jamal Islam and the physicist Freeman Dyson. Then, in their 1999 book The Five Ages of the Universe, the astrophysicists Fred Adams and Gregory Laughlin divided the past and future history of an expanding universe into five eras. The first, the "Primordial Era", is the time in the past just after the Big Bang when stars had not yet formed. The second, the "Stelliferous Era", includes the present day and all of the stars and galaxies now seen. It is the time during which stars form from collapsing clouds of gas. In the subsequent "Degenerate Era", the stars will have burnt out, leaving all stellar-mass objects as stellar remnants—white dwarfs, neutron stars, and black holes. In the "Black Hole Era", white dwarfs, neutron stars, and other smaller astronomical objects have been destroyed by proton decay, leaving only black holes. Finally, in the "Dark Era", even black holes have disappeared, leaving only a dilute gas of photons and leptons.


title: Future of an expanding universe

text: This future history and the timeline below assume the continued expansion of the universe. If space in the universe begins to contract, subsequent events in the timeline may not occur because the Big Crunch, the collapse of the universe into a hot, dense state similar to that after the Big Bang, will supervene.


title: Future of an expanding universe

text: The observable universe is currently 1.38 (13.8 billion) years old. This time is in the Stelliferous Era. About 155 million years after the Big Bang, the first star formed. Since then, stars have formed by the collapse of small, dense core regions in large, cold molecular clouds of hydrogen gas. At first, this produces a protostar, which is hot and bright because of energy generated by gravitational contraction. After the protostar contracts for a while, its core could become hot enough to fuse hydrogen, if it exceeds critical mass, a process called 'stellar ignition' occurs, and its lifetime as a star will properly begin.


title: Future of an expanding universe

text: Stars of very low mass will eventually exhaust all their fusible hydrogen and then become helium white dwarfs. Stars of low to medium mass, such as our own sun, will expel some of their mass as a planetary nebula and eventually become white dwarfs; more massive stars will explode in a core-collapse supernova, leaving behind neutron stars or black holes. In any case, although some of the star's matter may be returned to the interstellar medium, a degenerate remnant will be left behind whose mass is not returned to the interstellar medium. Therefore, the supply of gas available for star formation is steadily being exhausted.


title: Future of an expanding universe

text: The Andromeda Galaxy is currently approximately 2.5 million light years away from our galaxy, the Milky Way Galaxy, and they are moving towards each other at approximately 300 kilometers (186 miles) per second. Approximately five billion years from now, or 19 billion years after the Big Bang, the Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy will collide with one another and merge into one large galaxy based on current evidence (see, Andromeda–Milky Way collision.) Up until 2012, there was no way to confirm whether the possible collision was going to happen or not. In 2012, researchers came to the conclusion that the collision is definite after using the Hubble Space Telescope between 2002 and 2010 to track the motion of Andromeda. This results in the formation of "Milkdromeda" (also known as "Milkomeda").


title: Future of an expanding universe

text: 22 billion years in the future is the earliest possible end of the Universe in the Big Rip scenario, assuming a model of dark energy with = −1.5.


title: Future of an expanding universe

text: The galaxies in the Local Group, the cluster of galaxies which includes the Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy, are gravitationally bound to each other. It is expected that between (100 billion) and (1 trillion) years from now, their orbits will decay and the entire Local Group will merge into one large galaxy.


title: Future of an expanding universe

text: Assuming that dark energy continues to make the universe expand at an accelerating rate, in about 150 billion years all galaxies outside the Local Supercluster will pass behind the cosmological horizon. It will then be impossible for events in the Local Supercluster to affect other galaxies. Similarly, it will be impossible for events after 150 billion years, as seen by observers in distant galaxies, to affect events in the Local Supercluster. However, an observer in the Local Supercluster will continue to see distant galaxies, but events they observe will become exponentially more redshifted as the galaxy approaches the horizon until time in the distant galaxy seems to stop. The observer in the Local Supercluster never observes events after 150 billion years in their local time, and eventually all light and background radiation lying outside the Local Supercluster will appear to blink out as light becomes so redshifted that its wavelength has become longer than the physical diameter of the horizon.


title: Future of an expanding universe

text: Technically, it will take an infinitely long time for all causal interaction between the Local Supercluster and this light to cease. However, due to the redshifting explained above, the light will not necessarily be observed for an infinite amount of time, and after 150 billion years, no new causal interaction will be observed.


title: Future of an expanding universe

text: Therefore, after 150 billion years, intergalactic transportation and communication beyond the Local Supercluster becomes causally impossible.


title: Future of an expanding universe

text: 8 (800 billion) years from now, the luminosities of the different galaxies, approximately similar until then to the current ones thanks to the increasing luminosity of the remaining stars as they age, will start to decrease, as the less massive red dwarf stars begin to die as white dwarfs.


title: Future of an expanding universe

text: 2 (2 trillion) years from now, all galaxies outside the Local Supercluster will be redshifted to such an extent that even gamma rays they emit will have wavelengths longer than the size of the observable universe of the time. Therefore, these galaxies will no longer be detectable in any way.


title: Future of an expanding universe

text: By (100 trillion) years from now, star formation will end, leaving all stellar objects in the form of degenerate remnants. If protons do not decay, stellar-mass objects will disappear more slowly, making this era last longer.


title: Future of an expanding universe

text: By (100 trillion) years from now, star formation will end. This period, known as the "Degenerate Era", will last until the degenerate remnants finally decay. The least massive stars take the longest to exhaust their hydrogen fuel (see stellar evolution). Thus, the longest living stars in the universe are low-mass red dwarfs, with a mass of about 0.08 solar masses (), which have a lifetime of over (10 trillion) years. Coincidentally, this is comparable to the length of time over which star formation takes place. Once star formation ends and the least massive red dwarfs exhaust their fuel, nuclear fusion will cease. The low-mass red dwarfs will cool and become black dwarfs. The only objects remaining with more than planetary mass will be brown dwarfs, with mass less than , and degenerate remnants; white dwarfs, produced by stars with initial masses between about 0.08 and 8 solar masses; and neutron stars and black holes, produced by stars with initial masses over . Most of the mass of this collection, approximately 90%, will be in the form of white dwarfs. In the absence of any energy source, all of these formerly luminous bodies will cool and become faint.


title: Future of an expanding universe

text: The universe will become extremely dark after the last stars burn out. Even so, there can still be occasional light in the universe. One of the ways the universe can be illuminated is if two carbon–oxygen white dwarfs with a combined mass of more than the Chandrasekhar limit of about 1.4 solar masses happen to merge. The resulting object will then undergo runaway thermonuclear fusion, producing a Type Ia supernova and dispelling the darkness of the Degenerate Era for a few weeks. Neutron stars could also collide, forming even brighter supernovae and dispelling up to 6 solar masses of degenerate gas into the interstellar medium. The resulting matter from these supernovae could potentially create new stars. If the combined mass is not above the Chandrasekhar limit but is larger than the minimum mass to fuse carbon (about ), a carbon star could be produced, with a lifetime of around (1 million) years. Also, if two helium white dwarfs with a combined mass of at least collide, a helium star may be produced, with a lifetime of a few hundred million years. Finally, brown dwarfs could form new stars by colliding with each other to form red dwarf stars, which can survive for (10 trillion) years, or by accreting gas at very slow rates from the remaining interstellar medium until they have enough mass to start hydrogen burning as red dwarfs. This process, at least on white dwarfs, could induce Type Ia supernovae.


title: Future of an expanding universe

text: Over time, the orbits of planets will decay due to gravitational radiation, or planets will be ejected from their local systems by gravitational perturbations caused by encounters with another stellar remnant.


title: Future of an expanding universe

text: Over time, objects in a galaxy exchange kinetic energy in a process called dynamical relaxation, making their velocity distribution approach the Maxwell–Boltzmann distribution. Dynamical relaxation can proceed either by close encounters of two stars or by less violent but more frequent distant encounters. In the case of a close encounter, two brown dwarfs or stellar remnants will pass close to each other. When this happens, the trajectories of the objects involved in the close encounter change slightly, in such a way that their kinetic energies are more nearly equal than before. After a large number of encounters, then, lighter objects tend to gain speed while the heavier objects lose it.


title: Future of an expanding universe

text: Because of dynamical relaxation, some objects will gain just enough energy to reach galactic escape velocity and depart the galaxy, leaving behind a smaller, denser galaxy. Since encounters are more frequent in this denser galaxy, the process then accelerates. The end result is that most objects (90% to 99%) are ejected from the galaxy, leaving a small fraction (maybe 1% to 10%) which fall into the central supermassive black hole. It has been suggested that the matter of the fallen remnants will form an accretion disk around it that will create a quasar, as long as enough matter is present there.


title: Future of an expanding universe

text: In an expanding universe with decreasing density and non-zero cosmological constant, matter density would reach zero, resulting in most matter except black dwarfs, neutron stars, black holes, and planets ionizing and dissipating at thermal equilibrium.


title: Future of an expanding universe

text: The subsequent evolution of the universe depends on the possibility and rate of proton decay. Experimental evidence shows that if the proton is unstable, it has a half-life of at least years. Some of the Grand Unified theories (GUTs) predict long-term proton instability between and years, with the upper bound on standard (non-supersymmetry) proton decay at 1.4 years and an overall upper limit maximum for any proton decay (including supersymmetry models) at 6 years. Recent research showing proton lifetime (if unstable) at or exceeding – year range rules out simpler GUTs and most non-supersymmetry models.


title: Future of an expanding universe

text: Neutrons bound into nuclei are also suspected to decay with a half-life comparable to that of protons. Planets (substellar objects) would decay in a simple cascade process from heavier elements to hydrogen and finally to photons and leptons while radiating energy.


title: Future of an expanding universe

text: If the proton does not decay at all, then stellar objects would still disappear, but more slowly. See Future without proton decay below.


title: Future of an expanding universe

text: Shorter or longer proton half-lives will accelerate or decelerate the process. This means that after years (the maximum proton half-life used by Adams & Laughlin (1997)), one-half of all baryonic matter will have been converted into gamma ray photons and leptons through proton decay.


title: Future of an expanding universe

text: Given our assumed half-life of the proton, nucleons (protons and bound neutrons) will have undergone roughly 1,000 half-lives by the time the universe is years old. This means that there will be roughly 0.5 (approximately ) as many nucleons; as there are an estimated protons currently in the universe, none will remain at the end of the Degenerate Age. Effectively, all baryonic matter will have been changed into photons and leptons. Some models predict the formation of stable positronium atoms with diameters greater than the observable universe's current diameter (roughly 6 · metres) in years, and that these will in turn decay to gamma radiation in years.


title: Future of an expanding universe

text: If the proton does not decay according to the theories described above, then the Degenerate Era will last longer, and will overlap or surpass the Black Hole Era. On a time scale of years solid matter is theorized to potentially rearrange its atoms and molecules via quantum tunneling, and may behave as liquid and become smooth spheres due to diffusion and gravity. Degenerate stellar objects can potentially still experience proton decay, for example via processes involving the Adler–Bell–Jackiw anomaly, virtual black holes, or higher-dimension supersymmetry possibly with a half-life of under years.


title: Future of an expanding universe

text: 2018 estimate of Standard Model lifetime before collapse of a false vacuum; 95% confidence interval is 10 to 10 years due in part to uncertainty about the top quark mass.


title: Future of an expanding universe

text: Although protons are stable in standard model physics, a quantum anomaly may exist on the electroweak level, which can cause groups of baryons (protons and neutrons) to annihilate into antileptons via the sphaleron transition. Such baryon/lepton violations have a number of 3 and can only occur in multiples or groups of three baryons, which can restrict or prohibit such events. No experimental evidence of sphalerons has yet been observed at low energy levels, though they are believed to occur regularly at high energies and temperatures.


title: Future of an expanding universe

text: After  years, black holes will dominate the universe. They will slowly evaporate via Hawking radiation.A black hole with a mass of around will vanish in around 2 years. As the lifetime of a black hole is proportional to the cube of its mass, more massive black holes take longer to decay. A supermassive black hole with a mass of (100 billion) will evaporate in around 2 years.


title: Future of an expanding universe

text: The largest black holes in the universe are predicted to continue to grow. Larger black holes of up to (100 trillion) may form during the collapse of superclusters of galaxies. Even these would evaporate over a timescale of to years.


title: Future of an expanding universe

text: Hawking radiation has a thermal spectrum. During most of a black hole's lifetime, the radiation has a low temperature and is mainly in the form of massless particles such as photons and hypothetical gravitons. As the black hole's mass decreases, its temperature increases, becoming comparable to the Sun's by the time the black hole mass has decreased to kilograms. The hole then provides a temporary source of light during the general darkness of the Black Hole Era. During the last stages of its evaporation, a black hole will emit not only massless particles, but also heavier particles, such as electrons, positrons, protons, and antiprotons.


title: Future of an expanding universe

text: After all the black holes have evaporated (and after all the ordinary matter made of protons has disintegrated, if protons are unstable), the universe will be nearly empty. Photons, baryons, neutrinos, electrons, and positrons will fly from place to place, hardly ever encountering each other. Gravitationally, the universe will be dominated by dark matter, electrons, and positrons (not protons).


title: Future of an expanding universe

text: By this era, with only very diffuse matter remaining, activity in the universe will have tailed off dramatically (compared with previous eras), with very low energy levels and very large time scales. Electrons and positrons drifting through space will encounter one another and occasionally form positronium atoms. These structures are unstable, however, and their constituent particles must eventually annihilate. However, most electrons and positrons will remain unbound. Other low-level annihilation events will also take place, albeit very slowly. The universe now reaches an extremely low-energy state.


title: Future of an expanding universe

text: If the protons do not decay, stellar-mass objects will still become black holes, but more slowly. The following timeline assumes that proton decay does not take place.


title: Future of an expanding universe

text: In years, cold fusion occurring via quantum tunneling should make the light nuclei in stellar-mass objects fuse into iron-56 nuclei (see isotopes of iron). Fission and alpha particle emission should make heavy nuclei also decay to iron, leaving stellar-mass objects as cold spheres of iron, called iron stars. Before this happens, in some black dwarfs the process is expected to lower their Chandrasekhar limit resulting in a supernova in years. Non-degenerate silicon has been calculated to tunnel to iron in approximately years.


title: Future of an expanding universe

text: Quantum tunneling should also turn large objects into black holes, which (on these timescales) will instantaneously evaporate into subatomic particles. Depending on the assumptions made, the time this takes to happen can be calculated as from years to years. Quantum tunneling may also make iron stars collapse into neutron stars in around years.


title: Future of an expanding universe

text: With black holes having evaporated, all baryonic matter will have now decayed into subatomic particles (electrons, neutrons, protons, and quarks). The universe is now an almost pure vacuum (possibly accompanied with the presence of a false vacuum). The expansion of the universe slowly cools it down to absolute zero.


title: Future of an expanding universe

text: It is possible that a Big Rip event may occur far off into the future. This singularity would take place at a finite scale factor.


title: Future of an expanding universe

text: Presumably, extreme low-energy states imply that localized quantum events become major macroscopic phenomena rather than negligible microscopic events because the smallest perturbations make the biggest difference in this era, so there is no telling what may happen to space or time. It is perceived that the laws of "macro-physics" will break down, and the laws of quantum physics will prevail.


title: Future of an expanding universe

text: The universe could possibly avoid eternal heat death through random quantum tunneling and quantum fluctuations, given the non-zero probability of producing a new Big Bang in roughly years.


title: Future of an expanding universe

text: Over an infinite amount of time, there could be a spontaneous entropy decrease, by a Poincaré recurrence or through thermal fluctuations (see also fluctuation theorem).


title: Future of an expanding universe

text: Massive black dwarfs could also potentially explode into supernovae after up to , assuming protons do not decay.


title: Future of an expanding universe

text: The possibilities above are based on a simple form of dark energy. However, the physics of dark energy are still a very active area of research, and the actual form of dark energy could be much more complex. For example, during inflation, dark energy affected the universe very differently than it does today, so it is possible that dark energy could trigger another inflationary period in the future. Until dark energy is better understood, its possible effects are extremely difficult to predict or parametrize.


title: Brandon Perea

text: Brandon Perea (born May 25, 1995) is an American actor, best known for his performance as Alfonso Sosa on "The OA" and his breakthrough role of Angel Torres in Jordan Peele's 2022 science fiction horror film "Nope".


title: Brandon Perea

text: Perea was born and raised in Chicago. He is of Filipino and Puerto Rican descent. He moved out at the age of 16 to pursue his dreams in Los Angeles. Brandon's main talents include acting, jamskating (Breakdancing on Roller-Skates), dancing and BMXing. He's been breakdancing since he was a kid and became Pro at the youngest age in Jamskating history.


title: Robert Lindsay (actor)

text: Robert Lindsay Stevenson (born 13 December 1949) is an English actor. He is the recipient of numerous accolades, including a British Academy Television Award, a Tony Award and two Laurence Olivier Awards.


title: Robert Lindsay (actor)

text: His first major role on TV was playing Wolfie Smith in "Citizen Smith". He appeared in sitcoms, most notably as Ben Harper in "My Family", playing the role for over a decade, and narrated TV adaptations of the children's television series "Brambly Hedge". His film appearances include "Fierce Creatures" and "Wimbledon". He has appeared with the Royal Shakespeare Company and in musical theatre.


title: Robert Lindsay (actor)

text: Lindsay was born in Ilkeston, Derbyshire, to Joyce ("née" Dunmore) and Norman Stevenson, who worked at the local Stanton Ironworks. He was one of three children and his father was a World War II veteran, having been on a minesweeper.


title: Robert Lindsay (actor)

text: After leaving Gladstone Boys' School, Lindsay enrolled in the drama department of Clarendon College in Nottingham, intending to become a drama teacher. However, friends at Nottingham Playhouse encouraged him to apply to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), and in 1968, he was accepted there with the aid of a government grant. After graduation, he worked as a dialect coach for a repertory company in Essex, and then joined a regional theatre group.


title: Robert Lindsay (actor)

text: Lindsay's early career included roles in British films such as "That'll Be The Day" (1973), "Three for All" (1975), and "Adventures of a Taxi Driver" (1976). He came to prominence as the cockney Teddy Boy Jakey Smith in the ITV comedy series "Get Some In!" (1975–1977) that was based on the National Service in the RAF. He was given the starring role as delusional revolutionary Wolfie Smith in the BBC sitcom "Citizen Smith" (1977–1980), which raised his profile further.


title: Robert Lindsay (actor)

text: Towards the end of the run of "Citizen Smith", Lindsay won roles in the BBC Television Shakespeare series, including Lysander in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" (1981), Fabian in "Twelfth Night" (1980) and Benedick in "Much Ado About Nothing" (1984). He played Edmund in the Granada Television production of "King Lear" (1983).


title: Robert Lindsay (actor)

text: In 1984, he appeared as a car dealership manager called Mike Barnes in a salesman's training video for Austin Rover alongside Peter Egan and George A. Cooper, which trained staff on how to sell the Austin Montego, which was launched in April of that year.


title: Robert Lindsay (actor)

text: He played the role of Bill Snibson in the hugely acclaimed 1984 London revival of "Me and My Girl" (for which he won an Olivier Award) which subsequently transferred to Broadway, earning him a Tony Award.


title: Robert Lindsay (actor)

text: Lindsay's success on Broadway and in the West End led to a starring role in the film "Bert Rigby, You're a Fool" (1989), although it was not a commercial success. His next role was in the James Scott-directed "Strike It Rich" (1990) alongside Molly Ringwald and John Gielgud. He continued, however, to enjoy success on television, and played the leading role in Alan Bleasdale's dark comedy serial "G.B.H." (1991), winning a BAFTA for his performance. Lindsay was also in Bleasdale's "Jake's Progress" (1995) the tale of a couple played by Lindsay and Julie Walters who were struggling to cope with a 'difficult' child (Barclay Wright). Both Bleasdale serials were screened by Channel 4, as was the surreal Channel 4 sitcom "Nightingales" (1990–93), which also featured David Threlfall and James Ellis. In 1996, Lindsay played the title role of "Becket", the play by Jean Anouilh, opposite Derek Jacobi as King Henry II for which was nominated for another Olivier Award. Lindsay won his second Olivier award after he took over the role of Fagin during 1997 in Cameron Mackintosh's London revival of "Oliver!" at the London Palladium.


title: Robert Lindsay (actor)

text: Lindsay appeared in the films "Fierce Creatures" (1997) and "Divorcing Jack" (1998) and in 1998, he was cast in the recurring role of Captain Pellew in the ITV mini-series "Hornblower", based on the novels of C.S. Forester which ran until 2003. Lindsay was also the original choice for the lead role in the drama "Cracker"; however, he turned the part down as he did not want to become too associated with heavy, darker drama characters. He later appeared as Fagin in the 1999 ITV "Oliver Twist" miniseries.


title: Robert Lindsay (actor)

text: In October 2005, he starred in ITV drama series "Jericho" about a Scotland Yard detective investigating murder and kidnapping in London's Soho in the 1950s. In January and February 2006, he was the only actor (as Sneath) to appear in two loosely linked Stephen Poliakoff dramas, "Friends and Crocodiles" and "Gideon's Daughter", shown on BBC One.


title: Robert Lindsay (actor)

text: Lindsay has also portrayed Prime Minister Tony Blair in the Channel 4 satires "A Very Social Secretary" and "The Trial of Tony Blair". In 2003, he appeared in an episode of "Absolutely Fabulous" playing the character of Pete, an old musician boyfriend of Edina Monsoon (Jennifer Saunders), and narrated the BBC documentary series "Seven Wonders of the Industrial World" (2003).


title: Robert Lindsay (actor)

text: He appeared in the 8th Ricky Gervais Video Podcast, in which Gervais announced that Lindsay would be in the second series of "Extras," appearing in the last episode of the 2006 series as an arrogant, mean-spirited version of himself. Lindsay also appeared in the romantic comedy "Wimbledon", as the tennis club manager who hires Peter Colt. In 2007 at the Old Vic Theatre, Lindsay played Archie Rice in John Osborne's "The Entertainer", a role first performed by Olivier in 1957. In 2009, he played the protagonist, Maddox, from the Radio 4 comedy "Electric Ink" by Alistair Beaton.


title: Robert Lindsay (actor)

text: In 2010, Lindsay starred in the title role of Derby Live's production of "Onassis" before its transfer to London's West End. He played the same role in "Grace of Monaco". Lindsay starred as The Examiner in the British sitcom "Spy", which debuted in October 2011 on Sky 1, and returned to the cast in 2012 for a second series. In November 2011, he starred as Henry in a revival of "The Lion in Winter" by James Goldman at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, London, a production which also featured Joanna Lumley as Eleanor, and was directed by Trevor Nunn.


title: Robert Lindsay (actor)

text: In 2012, Lindsay appeared in the Sky detective series "Falcón", episode "The Silent and the Damned", as Pablo Ortega.


title: Robert Lindsay (actor)

text: In 2014, Lindsay starred as Lawrence in the UK première production of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels at Savoy Theatre London, directed and choreographed by Jerry Mitchell.


title: Robert Lindsay (actor)

text: Lindsay sings the recorded version of Derby County F.C.'s song "Steve Bloomer's Watchin'", played and sung by the fans at the beginning of every home game.


title: Robert Lindsay (actor)

text: In 2016, Lindsay recurred on the second season of the ABC fairy tale-themed musical comedy series "Galavant" as Chester Wormwood, an evil wizard/wedding planner.


title: Robert Lindsay (actor)

text: In 2017, Lindsay played Hermann Einstein in the National Geographic TV series "Genius". He also played Jack Cardiff in "Prism" at the Hampstead Theatre, a role he reprised on a UK tour in autumn 2019.


title: Robert Lindsay (actor)

text: In 2019, Lindsay played supporting role of King John in Disney's "". The film starred Angelina Jolie, Elle Fanning, Michelle Pfeiffer, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and was released on 18 October 2019.


title: Robert Lindsay (actor)

text: Lindsay starred as Moonface Martin in a revival of "Anything Goes", directed by Kathleen Marshall, at the Barbican Theatre from July to November 2021. He received his third Olivier Award nomination for Best Actor in a Musical in 2022.


title: Robert Lindsay (actor)

text: In 1974, Lindsay married Cheryl Hall, who later appeared opposite him in "Citizen Smith". They divorced in 1980, when he started a long-term relationship with actress Diana Weston, with whom he has a daughter, Sydney Laura Stevenson, and who co-starred with him in three episodes of "My Family". He married English actress, dancer and television presenter Rosemarie Ford on 31 December 2006.


title: Robert Lindsay (actor)

text: On 13 September 2006, Lindsay researched his family tree in the third series of "Who Do You Think You Are?". He travelled to his hometown and to Turkey, where his grandfather Raymond Dunmore had taken part in the Gallipoli campaign during World War I.


title: Robert Lindsay (actor)

text: Lindsay is a lifelong supporter of Derby County F.C., which he revealed in a short section for on the CBBC program "Newsround" entitled "My Team".


title: Robert Lindsay (actor)

text: Lindsay is known for his left-wing political beliefs, usually describing himself as a staunch socialist, and has marched in support of miners. He is a passionate supporter of the Labour Party, but an outspoken critic of then Prime Minister Tony Blair's decisions to go to war in Afghanistan and Iraq, saying that he was "furious" and feeling disillusioned with mainstream politics: "You see those images of Iraq and Afghanistan and Lebanon, don't you? And I suspect somewhere, when he goes home at night and the kids are in bed, he must go, 'Jesus, what have I done?'"


title: Robert Lindsay (actor)

text: Lindsay has suffered from depressive episodes and symptoms of seasonal affective disorder in winter months for most of his life. He has spoken publicly about his positive experiences with light therapy and counselling, saying that "they really do work".


title: Raven's Progressive Matrices

text: Raven's Progressive Matrices (often referred to simply as Raven's Matrices) or RPM is a non-verbal test typically used to measure general human intelligence and abstract reasoning and is regarded as a non-verbal estimate of fluid intelligence. It is one of the most common tests administered to both groups and individuals ranging from 5-year-olds to the elderly. It comprises 60 multiple choice questions, listed in order of increasing difficulty. This format is designed to measure the test taker's reasoning ability, the eductive ("meaning-making") component of Spearman's g (g is often referred to as general intelligence).


title: Raven's Progressive Matrices

text: The tests were originally developed by John C. Raven in 1936. In each test item, the subject is asked to identify the missing element that completes a pattern. Many patterns are presented in the form of a 6×6, 4×4, 3×3, or 2×2 matrix, giving the test its name.


title: Raven's Progressive Matrices

text: The questions consist of visual geometric design with a missing piece, with six to eight choices that fill in the piece.


title: Raven's Progressive Matrices

text: Raven's Progressive Matrices and Vocabulary tests were originally developed for use in research into the genetic and environmental origins of cognitive ability. Raven thought that the tests commonly in use at that time were cumbersome to administer and the results difficult to interpret. Accordingly, he set about developing simple measures of the two main components of Spearman's "g": the ability to think clearly and make sense of complexity (known as eductive ability) and the ability to store and reproduce information (known as reproductive ability).


title: Raven's Progressive Matrices

text: Raven's tests of both were developed with the aid of what later became known as item response theory.


title: Raven's Progressive Matrices

text: Raven first published his Progressive Matrices in the United Kingdom in 1938. His three sons established Scotland-based test publisher J C Raven Ltd. in 1972. In 2004, Harcourt Assessment, Inc. a division of Harcourt Education, acquired J C Raven Ltd. Harcourt was later acquired by Pearson PLC.


title: Raven's Progressive Matrices

text: In addition, "parallel" forms of the standard and coloured progressive matrices were published in 1998. This was to address the problem of the Raven's Matrices being too well known in the general population. Items in the parallel tests have been constructed so that average solution rates to each question are identical for the classic and parallel versions. A revised version of the RSPM – the Standard Progressive Matrices Plus – was published at the same time. This was based on the "parallel" version but, although the test was the same length, it had more difficult items in order to restore the test's ability to differentiate among more able adolescents and young adults that the original RSPM had when it was first published. This new test, developed with the aid of better sampling arrangements and developments in the procedures available to implement the item response theory, has turned out to have exemplary test properties.


title: Raven's Progressive Matrices

text: The tests were initially developed for research purposes. Because of their independence of language and reading and writing skills, and the simplicity of their use and interpretation, they quickly found widespread practical application. For example, all entrants to the British armed forces from 1942 onwards took a twenty-minute version of the RSPM, and potential officers took a specially adapted version as part of British War Office Selection Boards. The routine administration of what became the Standard Progressive Matrices to all entrants (conscripts) to many military services throughout the world (including the Soviet Union) continued at least until the present century. It was by bringing together these data that James R. Flynn was able to place the intergenerational increase in scores beyond reasonable doubt. Flynn's path-breaking publications on IQ gains around the world have led to the phenomenon of the gains being known as the Flynn effect. Among Robert L. Thorndike and other researchers who preceded Flynn in finding evidence of IQ score gains was John Raven, reporting on studies with the RPM.


title: Raven's Progressive Matrices

text: A 2007 study provided evidence that individuals with Asperger syndrome, a high-functioning autism spectrum disorder, score higher than other individuals on Raven's tests. Another 2007 study provided evidence that individuals with classic autism, a low-functioning autism spectrum disorder, score higher in Raven's tests than in Wechsler tests. In addition, the individuals with classic autism were providing correct answers to the Raven's test in less time than individuals without autism, although erring as often.


title: Raven's Progressive Matrices

text: The high IQ societies Intertel and the International Society for Philosophical Enquiry (ISPE) accept the RAPM as a qualification for admission, and so does the International High IQ Society. The Triple Nine Society used to accept the Advanced Progressive Matrices as one of their admission tests. They still accept a raw score of at least 35 out of 36 on Set II of the RAPM if scored before April 2014.


title: Spanish profanity

text: The Spanish language employs a wide range of swear words that vary between Spanish speaking nations and in regions and subcultures of each nation. Idiomatic expressions, particularly profanity, are not always directly translatable into other languages, and so most of the English translations offered in this article are very rough and most likely do not reflect the full meaning of the expression they intend to translate.


title: Spanish profanity

text: In Spanish, as in most languages, swear words tend to come from semantic domains considered taboo, such as human excretions, sexuality, and religion, and swearing serves several functions in discourse.


title: Spanish profanity

text: Spanish insults are often of a sexual nature, taking the form of implying a lack of sexual decency if the insulted person is a woman (e.g. "puta", "whore", "perra" "bitch") or implying a lack of masculinity if the insulted person is male (e.g. "maricón" "faggot", "puto" "male prostitute"). A particularly forceful Spanish insult is any mention of someone else's mother, including also in its strongest form (e.g. "¡me cago en tu puta madre!" "fuck your whore of a mother!", in which "me cago" out of context means "I shit", but in this sentence it expresses disregard).


title: Spanish profanity

text: Emphatic exclamations, not aimed to insult but to express strong emotion, often include words for sexual relations (e.g. "¡joder!" "fuck!", "¡chingados!" "fuckers!") or to excretions or sexual organs ("¡mierda!" "shit!", "¡coño!" "pussy!"). Sexual taboo words that describe a masculine sexuality may be used in a positive sense (e.g. "cabrón" "male goat", "gallo" "rooster", "cerdo" "pig").


title: Spanish profanity

text: The following words are indicative of a variety of sexual acts, especially sexual intercourse and masturbation, though mostly limited to specific geographic regions.


title: Spanish profanity

text: chingar—originating from the Basque verb txingartu, meaning "to burn with coal" or from Caló (Spanish Romani) word čingarár, meaning "to fight". In the work "La Chingada", it was famously applied to La Malinche, the mistress of Hernán Cortés.


title: Spanish profanity

text: The word is derived from "chingar" which means "to fuck", which came from the Romani language word for "fight" used by the Gitanos. This word has many meanings in the Spanish language, most limited to Mexico:


title: Spanish profanity

text: Like , the word comes from . When used to describe a person, it describes someone who can "chingar" others; in other words, "better" or even "the best".


title: Spanish profanity

text: follar—used particularly in Spain and to a lesser extent in Cuba, but rarely found elsewhere. Follar literally means "to blow air with the bellows" and probably refers to panting during sex.


title: Spanish profanity

text: The verb "joder/joderse" is a harsh way of saying "to bother" and its English equivalent is "fuck". It can literally mean "to fuck somebody" e.g. "anoche, Juan y su novia jodieron" ("last night Juan and his girlfriend fucked"), or it can mean "to annoy", "to ruin", etc. "no me jodas" (don't annoy/bother me), or "lo has jodido" (you've fucked it up). It can be used as an adjective, like the English "fucking" ("jodido") and is often used as a light interjection: "¡Joder! Olvidé mi abrigo" ("Fuck! I've forgotten my coat").


title: Spanish profanity

text: Alternative ways of referring to sexual intercourse include: "follar, echar un polvo" (Argentina, Spain), "coger" (Argentina, Mexico), "chimar, pisar" (Central America), "culear" (Argentina, Chile and Colombia), "singar" (Cuba), "garchar", "mojar la chaucha, ponerla" (Argentina) and "cachar" (Peru).


title: Spanish profanity

text: Remojar el cochayuyo (lit.: to soak the "cochayuyo")—used in Chile The expression alludes to the cochayuyo algae that is harvested on Chile's coast. The algae is preserved by sun-drying. To be used for cooking, it then needs to be softened by soaking in water.


title: Spanish profanity

text: "Coger" can be confused with the verb "to take" but in the majority of Latin America is used to talk about taking someone sexually.


title: Spanish profanity

text: Cojón (plural cojones) is slang for "testicle" and may be used as a synonym for "guts" or what it takes", hence making it equivalent to English balls or bollocks.


title: Spanish profanity

text: A common expression in Spain is anything to the effect of "hace lo que le sale de los cojones" ("does whatever comes out of his/her balls"), meaning "does whatever the fuck he/she wants". Variations are "sale de los huevos", "sale de las pelotas", etc. A common Basque aphorism is "los de Bilbao nacemos donde nos sale de los cojones" ("we Bilbao natives are born wherever the fuck we want").


title: Spanish profanity

text: Sometimes, to denote obnoxious or overbearing behavior from someone else, idiom "tocar los cojones/huevos/pelotas/ ..." ("to touch someone else's balls") comes to play. For instance: "Venga, dame eso y para ya de tocarme los cojones" ("Come on, give me that and stop bothering me.") It can sometimes be an understatement: "A principios de los treinta, los nazis ya empezaban a tocar los cojones" (meaning, roughly, "At the beginning of the 1930s, the Nazis were already being an annoyance.").


title: Spanish profanity

text: It is also frequent to derive other words, such as adjectival form cojonudo (lit.: "ballsy"), indicating admiration. A famous Navarran brand of asparagus has this name.


title: Spanish profanity

text: Cojones also denotes courageous behavior or character. Acts of courage or bravery are expressed by using the word "cojones". For example, "Hay que tener cojones para hacer eso" ("it takes cojones to do that").


title: Spanish profanity

text: It is sometimes used, at least in Spain, as a suffix, complement or termination to a word or name in order to confer it a derisive or overbearing quality. For instance: "el Marcos de los cojones" ("That fucking guy Marcos"), "¡Dame ya la maleta de los cojones!" ("Give me the fucking suitcase why don't you!") However, it is more common to use "de cojones" as a superlative, as in "Es bajo de cojones" ("He's short as hell" or "He's short as fuck").


title: Spanish profanity

text: The phrases "me importa un cojón" or "me importa un huevo" mean "I don't give a fuck about" In alternative variations one would raise the number, usually to three: "me importa tres cojones".


title: Spanish profanity

text: "Cojones" alone can also be used much like the four-word exclamations, though less usually; it is frequently a giveaway for native Catalan speakers when they speak Spanish, as collons is used much more profusely in situations akin to those for "fuck" or "shit".


title: Spanish profanity

text: "Tocarse los cojones/los huevos/las pelotas/las peras" (lit. "to touch one's own balls") stands for idleness or laziness. The fact that this is not a well-known expression in the United States may have been the excuse, according to some sources, for the April 2011 dismissal of a Princeton Spanish senior lecturer, with tragic consequences. In Chile, this term is unused; the preferred expression is "rascarse las huevas" (lit. "to scratch one's own balls").


title: Spanish profanity

text: Carajo (lit.: "crow's nest") is used in Spain in reference to the penis. In Latin America (except Chile), it is a commonly used generic interjection similar to "fuck!" "shit!" or "damn it!" in English. For example: "Nos vamos a morir, ¡carajo!" ("We're gonna die, fuck!") or a far away place, likened to hell: "¡Vete al carajo!".


title: Spanish profanity

text: In Argentina, the term "Vamos Carajo" was used in Quilmes advertising in advance of the 2014 FIFA World Cup as a statement or cheer that an Argentine supporter would use to urge their team to victory.


title: Spanish profanity

text: The diminutive carajito is used in the Dominican Republic and Venezuela to refer to (usually annoying) children, or to scold someone for acting immaturely, e.g., "No actúes como un carajito" ("Don't act like a little dick!").


title: Spanish profanity

text: Caray is a mild minced oath for this word. "Ay caray" could be translated "Dang it" or "Darn it!" The word caracho is also considered mild like "caray".


title: Spanish profanity

text: The connotation of "far away place" is supposedly based on the name of the Cargados Carajos, which belong to Mauritius. Nationalistic chants commonly use the phrase: "¡Viva Cuba, carajo!", "¡Viva el Ecuador, carajo!", and "¡Viva el Perú, carajo!"


title: Spanish profanity

text: It is said that the term "carajo" originated during the Moorish invasion in Spain. The Moors were described as ""—or "garlic-face"/"garlic-shaped face"—which was later contracted to "carajo". In some other parts, cipote can also be used.


title: Spanish profanity

text: Bicho (lit.: "bug", "baitworm") is one of the most commonly used references to the penis in Puerto Rico. It is similar to the much less commonly used word pinga. In most other regions it is a non-vulgar reference to an insect or several species of small animals.


title: Spanish profanity

text: In Venezuela, it can be used as an interjection. In El Salvador, it is commonly used as the slang equivalent of "kids". In Nicaragua, and some parts of Costa Rica, "bicho" is used to reference the vagina. In Spain and the Dominican Republic, Mexico and many other Spanish speaking countries it refers to people (both male and female) who are a negative influence on others, often used as "mal bicho" ("bad bug"). When applied to children, it can mean one who is misbehaving.


title: Spanish profanity

text: Huevos (literally: "eggs"), pelotas (literally: "balls"), bolas (also literally: "balls"), peras (literally: "pears"), and albóndigas (literally: meatballs) all refer to testicles in a profane manner. They are equivalent to "cojones" in many situations. In Mexico, the word is not used in a potentially ambiguous situation; instead, one may use the inoffensive "blanquillos" (literally: "little white ones").


title: Spanish profanity

text: Sometimes the words lavahuevos ("egg-washer") or lamehuevos ("egg-licker") are used in the same context as "brown-noser" (meaning ambitious and self-effacing) in English.


title: Spanish profanity

text: Highly offensive Dominican insults involving this term are mamagüevo/mamagüevos ("egg-sucker") and mamagüevazo ("huge egg-sucker"). "Mamagüevo" is also used in Venezuela where it is considered less offensive.


title: Spanish profanity

text: Huevada/Huevá (lit.: "covered in egg") is used in Chile, Ecuador, and Peru in reference to objects ("¡Qué huevá más grande!" may translate to "What an annoyance!"). Shortened forms huevá or even weá and wa are usually intended to be less offensive. Many expressions using "cojones" in other countries are used in Chile with "huevas" replacing the former word. There's also a local expression: "¿Me hai visto las weas?" (lit. "Have you taken a look at my testicles?") means "How much of a fool do you think I am?".


title: Spanish profanity

text: Ñema (a corruption of "yema", meaning "yolk") refers to the glans. The word mamañema is functionally similar to "mamagüevo".


title: Spanish profanity

text: Pelotas can have another meaning when it comes to nudity. "Andar en pelotas" means to walk about stark naked.


title: Spanish profanity

text: In Mexico, "huevón" is a pejorative term that usually translates as "slacker". In Mexico, Panama and El Salvador it can be loosely translated as "couch potato." One may also say tengo hueva, meaning "I'm feeling lazy." In the Dominican Republic and Venezuela, güevón/güebón is the preferred form. In Venezuela, it is pronounced more like "güevón" and, often, ueón. In Chile and Peru, the preferred form to use is "huevón" (often shortened to "hueón" or "weón") and "ahuevonado"/"aweonao". In Panama, awebao is the popular form, and a good example of the clipping of consonants (and sometimes vowels) in informal Spanish. In Argentina boludo can be used by young people as a culturally appropriated term of endearment (¿cómo andás, boludo? = how are you doing, pal?), but it can also mean "slacker", "idiot", "ignorant", etc. In Chile, Peru and in the Quito region of Ecuador Ni cagando, huevón is a phrase commonly used among youth meaning "Don't even think about it" or "Not a chance". In Mexico, Tenga huevos (literally "Have eggs") translates as "Have some balls". For example, one can hear a Mexican say "No corras, ten huevos" which means "Don't run away, have some balls".


title: Spanish profanity

text: Verga (lit.: a "yardarm"—a part of a ship's mast that holds the sails) occurs in a number of Romance languages, including Portuguese and Italian.


title: Spanish profanity

text: In Venezuela it can be used as a vulgar generic filler, as well as a boastful self-reference (similar to the English "That shit" or "I'm the shit"). For example, "¡Soy bien verga!" (lit.: "I'm very dick!") means "I'm very good at it!", and "¡Soy la verga andando!" (lit.: "I'm the walking dick!") means "I'm the best that there is!". However, in the Venezuelan state of Zulia, the word is commonly used instead of "vaina"


title: Spanish profanity

text: In Mexico it refers to the penis; "Te voy a meter la verga" means "I'm going to insert my penis in you"; referring to somebody else, "Le metió la verga" or "se la metió" means "he fucked her/him" which may be the literal meaning, or more likely, it means that in a business, he got away with what he wanted for little money. It also have another meanings and derivative terms, for example: "Soy la verga" ("I am the best one"); "Me fué de la verga" (roughly "something bad happened to me"); "Me vale verga" ("I don't care"); "Vergueé" ("I ruined it", "I failed"); "Me verguearon" ("They defeated me"); "Me pusieron una verguiza" ("They scolded me", "They beat me"); "Vergón" ("cocky", "cool", "sexy"); "Está de la verga" ("That's ugly/bad" but also "That's very cool", "That's awesome") etc.


title: Spanish profanity

text: A common expression in Mexico is "¡Vete a la verga!", meaning "Get the fuck out of here!" In Mexico this can be used to mean difficult or impossible: "¡Está de la verga!", "This is very difficult!"


title: Spanish profanity

text: In Guatemala, it also refers to a state of drunkenness as in "¡Está bien a verga!", meaning "He's drunk as Hell!" or "He's shit-faced!". In El Salvador it can also be used with an ironically positive connotation as in "¡Se ve bien vergón!" or "¡Está bien vergón!", which means "It looks great!"


title: Spanish profanity

text: In Honduras, the expression "no vale ni verga" is used as a vulgar form of "no vale la pena", meaning "it's not worth it".


title: Spanish profanity

text: In the United States, the variant "a la verga" or "a la vé" for short, is very common in northern New Mexico, and is used frequently as an exclamatory expletive.


title: Spanish profanity

text: Chile is famous for its large number of alternative names and euphemisms for the penis. These range from the inoffensive ("pito" (lit. "whistle"), "diuca" (after a small bird)), through vulgar ("pichula", "pico") and euphemistic ("cabeza de bombero" (lit. "firefighter's head"), "dedo sin uña" ("nail-less finger")) to markedly euphemistic and humorous ("taladro de carne" (lit. "meat drill"), "cíclope llorón" (lit. "crying cyclops"), "chacal de las zorras" (lit. "cunt jackal", in the sense of the jackal being a relentless predator), et cetera).


title: Spanish profanity

text: Something similar happens in Argentina. From the classic "pito" or "pirulín" (a cone-shaped lollipop), which are innocent and even used by children, you can go all the way to the most vulgar ways as "pija", "verga" (lit. "yardarm"), "choto/chota" (after "chotar" which means "to suck"), "porongo/poronga" (a "gourd", which is also used to craft "mates"), "banana", "salchicha/chorizo" (two kind of sausages), "pedazo" (lit. "piece"), "garcha" (also used as the verb "garchar", which means "to fuck" or something of extremely bad quality), "palanca de cambios" (gear stick), "joystick", "bombilla de cuero" (lit. "leathery bombilla". "Bombillas" are used for drinking mate by sucking into them), etc. Among young people, almost every word can be turned into mean "dick" if said effusive and with connotation: -"¿Me pasás el encendedor?" -"¡Acá tengo un encendedor para vos!" (-"Can you give me the lighter?" -"I have a lighter for you right here!").


title: Spanish profanity

text: Concha (lit.: "mollusk shell" or "inner ear") is an offensive word for a woman's vulva or vagina (i.e. something akin to English cunt) in Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Mexico. In the rest of Latin America and Spain however, the word is only used with its literal meaning. In such regions, it is commonly heard in the phrase ¡(La) concha (de) tu madre! ("The "cunt" of your mother"), which may be used as an expression of surprise or grief, or as a highly disrespectful insult. The contracted term conchatumadre/conchetumadre is common and extremely offensive in Chile, Bolivia and Peru as well.


title: Spanish profanity

text: In Mexico "concha", which is used in its literal meaning, is also a type of sweet bread, round conch-shaped and covered in sugar, as well as having the aforementioned meaning and is offensive when used in said context. In Spain, Puerto Rico, Cuba and Mexico, "Concha" is a common name for females (corruption of "Concepción"). Also in Puerto Rico there is a popular hotel called La Concha Resort (The Seashell). Key West, Florida also has a famous hotel named La Concha. Concha can also mean a seashell-a conch.


title: Spanish profanity

text: Chucha/¡Chuchamadre! and ¡Chucha de tu madre! are Panamanian, Chilean, Ecuadorian, Peruvian or southern Colombian equivalents. Random examples and expressions: "Vení, oleme la chucha" ("Come and sniff my pussy"), "¡Ándate a la chucha!" (roughly "Fuck off").


title: Spanish profanity

text: Chocha (or "chocho", usually used in Spain) employed term for "pussy" predominantly in Cuba, Puerto Rico, Colombia, Spain, Mexico, Venezuela, and Dominican Republic. In the Spanish province of Albacete is also used choto (var. "chotera", "chotaco") in the same sense. The word is a homonym as it is also synonymous with "senile" when used as "He/she is chocho/chocha". In Chile, the word is used to mean "happy", and is used for old people; for example, the sentence "La abuelita quedó chocha con el regalo que le dí" means "Granny was happy with the gift I gave her".


title: Spanish profanity

text: Coño (from the Latin "cunnus") is a vulgar word for a woman's vulva or vagina. It is frequently translated as "cunt" but is considered much less offensive (it is much more common to hear the word "coño" on Spanish television than the word "cunt" on British television, for example).


title: Spanish profanity

text: In Puerto Rico, Spain, Venezuela, Mexico, Cuba, Dominican Republic and Panama it is amongst the most popular of curse words. The word is frequently used as an interjection, expressing surprise, anger or frustration. It is also common to use the expression "¿Pero qué coño?" to mean "What the fuck?"


title: Spanish profanity

text: Its usage was so common among Spaniards and Spanish-Filipino mestizos living in the Philippines that konyo became a Tagalog word for upper-class people.


title: Spanish profanity

text: In Ecuador and Chile it means stingy, tight-fisted, although in the latter country the variation "coñete" is becoming more common.


title: Spanish profanity

text: In Mexico and the Philippines, panocha (or panoche) refers generally to sweet breads or cakes, or, more specifically, to a raw, coarse form of sugar produced there. It is also a fudge made with brown sugar, butter, cream or milk, and nuts (penuche). In New Mexico it means a sprouted-wheat pudding. In the southwestern United States outside of Northern New Mexico (and in northern Mexico and some places in Cuba), however, it often refers to the female genitalia. Use of this word has been known to cause embarrassment among Hispanos of New Mexico when speaking with Mexicans from Mexico.


title: Spanish profanity

text: The word is a combination of penuche and panoja meaning "ear of corn", from the Latin "panicula" (from whence comes the English word "panicle"—pyramidal, loosely branched flower cluster).


title: Spanish profanity

text: Cuca (short for "cucaracha", lit.: "cockroach") is used in Honduras, Guatemala, Venezuela, southeastern México and Colombia. Slightly milder than "coño", and is almost inoffensive in the Dominican Republic.


title: Spanish profanity

text: In Chile it is criminal slang for paddy wagon. In general, it is used to refer to something considered scary.


title: Spanish profanity

text: It is also an inoffensive word for penis that many children use in Spain. It also has a slightly archaic use in Spain.


title: Spanish profanity

text: In Latin America it may describe a congenial, outgoing person with a gift for flattery ("Julia is very cuca") or ("Eddie is so cuco; look at all the friends he has.").


title: Spanish profanity

text: Polla (lit.: "female "pollo"", i.e.: chicken or hen) is used in Spain, Nicaragua, El Salvador and to a lesser extent in Puerto Rico. It is also used to mean a (young) female (similar to "chick"). Some years ago, in Costa Rica, the term jupa de pollo ("head of a chicken") was popular slang for "penis". The term todo el jupa de pollo was a popular way to say "the whole shebang", "the full Monty" or "it's complete now".


title: Spanish profanity

text: In Spain, to say that something, especially a situation or an arrangement, is la polla is to have a high opinion of it. "Esto es la polla. El hotel está al lado de la playa y además es muy barato" means "This is fucking great. The hotel is close to the beach and it's cheap, too."


title: Spanish profanity

text: In Spain it also means penis. Common expression in Spain is anything to the effect of "hace lo que le sale de la polla" ("does whatever comes out of his penis"), meaning "does whatever the fuck he/she wants". It can be used as a vulgar generic filler, as well as a boastful self-reference (similar to the English "That shit" or "I'm the shit"). For example, ¡Soy la polla! (lit.: "I'm the hen!") means "I'm very good at it!"


title: Spanish profanity

text: Although less used as profanity, some words for the bust can also be used derogatorily or humorously. Among them, some noteworthy are peras (i.e. pears), perolas (i.e. pearls), mingas, tatas, tetas, tetamen, tetitas, tetazas, tetorras, tetotas, tetarracas, tetuzas, tetacas, teturras, tetungas, tetillas, bufas, bufarras, bufarracas, bufoncias, bakugans, mamelungas, mamelones, domingas, bubalongas, babungas, pechugas, peritas, mamellas, tetolas, gemelas, pechamen, melones or" chichis,"


title: Spanish profanity

text: Culo is the most commonly used Spanish word for "ass." In El Salvador and Honduras, culero ("one who uses the "culo"") refers to a gay man, while in Mexico it refers to an unjust, unkind, aggressive or insensitive person likened to the connotation provided by the word asshole but usually more offensive.


title: Spanish profanity

text: "Vete a tomar por el culo" ("Go and take it in the ass") is an expression used in Spain, it is like "Vete a la mierda" but more offensive. "Me parto el culo" ("I break my ass") is used to express laughter. It can also mean to do excessive work, usually accompanied by a verb that indicates the work, e.g. "Me parto el culo barriendo" ("I work my ass off brooming").


title: Spanish profanity

text: In Chile and Peru, culo is considered offensive (as it sounds very much like culear); poto is used instead.


title: Spanish profanity

text: In Argentina culo or culito are almost innocent words, though they can also be considered vulgar depending on the context. Expressions like "en el culo del mundo" (lit. "in the ass of the world"), "en la loma del culo" (lit. "In the ass hill"), which mean "too far away" or "cara de culo" (lit. "ass face", used to describe an unpleasant face expression) are regularly used.


title: Spanish profanity

text: In Panama culo is used in to construct slang terms and phrases which range from slightly inappropriate to offensive but commonly used regardless. "Cara de culo" (ass face) refers to an unattractive person especially when the person in question has a round face with protruding cheeks. "Culo del mundo" ("asshole of the world") and "casa del culo" ("ass house") mean far away e.g. Vivo por "casa del culo"/en el "culo del mundo" (lit. "I live by ass house/in the asshole of the world"). "Culear" means to have sexual intercourse—the same as fuck in its literal meaning— but does not imply anal sex.


title: Spanish profanity

text: "Culito" ("little ass") is used by a penetrative partner to refer to a receptive partner in a sexual context; it is also used to refer to the buttocks in an inappropriate but affectionate way. "Culo de botella" ("bottle ass") refers to thick eyeglasses. "¡Ponte placa en el culo!" ("put a license plate on your ass!") is a phrase yelled by motorists at pedestrians who are standing or walking in the middle of the road, particularly in heavy traffic. "Recular" means to go on reverse while "estacionarse/parquearse de recula" means to reverse park. "Culillo" means fear while "culilloso/a" refers to someone who gets scared easily. "Hablar hasta por el culo" ("To talk out of the ass")—a local, impolite variant of the well-known frase "Hablar hasta por los codos" ("to talk through the elbows")—refers to someone who talks a lot; this variant is used to refer to a person in a negative way (as in "He/she won't shut up") while "Hablar hasta por los codos" does not necessarily imply annoyance.


title: Spanish profanity

text: Fundillo/Fundío—heard in Mexico and the southwestern United States as an obscene term specifically for the human anus. It carries about the same weight as the American usages of the words "(someone's) asshole" or "the crack of (someone's) ass." "Fundío" refers literally to the anus and is not used as a personal insult. For example, "¡Métetelo en fundío!" (or in Mexico, "Métetelo por el fundillo") is an expression of reproach. ("Shove it up your ass!") The variant "fondillo" is also found in Puerto Rico and Cuba. In the Dominican Republic, the milder term fullín and the very offensive cieso may also be used.


title: Spanish profanity

text: Ojete (lit.: "eyelet")—refers to the anus in some countries, and also is used to mean "asshole": "Se portó para el ojete conmigo" ("He was a really bad person with me", or "He was an asshole to me"). A popular obscene graffito in Mexico among schoolchildren is OGT; when the letters are pronounced in Spanish, they sound like "ojete". In Argentina and Uruguay, "ojete" and also its synonyms culo and orto can all be used to mean "good luck": "¡Qué ojete tiene ese tipo!" (He's such a lucky guy!), "Ganó de puro ojete!" (He won just because he was so terribly lucky).


title: Spanish profanity

text: Orto (a euphemism for "recto", that is rectum, from Greek "ortho-", as both rectum and ortho- mean "straight". Although due to its lower class origin it is also believed (and more likely) to be the vesre form of "roto", which means "broken", for "culo roto".)—in Argentina, Uruguay, and Chile, refers to buttocks (as either an object of appreciation or disgust): "Qué tremendo orto tiene esa mina" (in praise of a woman's buttocks), "Qué cara de orto" ("What an ugly/bitter/moody face"); or luck—either good or bad. "Me fue para el orto" and "Me fue como el orto." mean "I had an awfully bad luck on that". "Tiene un orto que no se puede creer" may mean "He/She is incredibly lucky" but can also be an appraisal of a someone's derrier, depending on context.


title: Spanish profanity

text: Cagar, just as in Portuguese, is a verb meaning "to shit." It also means to "screw (something) up", e.g. "¡Te cagaste los pantalones!" ("You shit your pants!"). Particularly in Spain and Cuba, there are a number of commonly used interjections incorporating this verb, many of which refer to defecating on something sacred, e.g. "Me cago en Dios" ("I shit on God"), "Me cago en la Virgen" ("I shit on the Virgin"), "Me cago en la hostia" ("I shit on the communion host"), "Me cago en el coño de tu madre" (Lit: I shit in your mother's cunt) is the strongest offense among Cubans. In Cuba, to soften the word in social gatherings, the "g" is substituted by the "s". See below.


title: Spanish profanity

text: In Venezuela, Costa Rica, Mexico, Peru, Argentina, Cuba, Chile and Panama it also means to make a big mistake or damage something i.e. fuck something up, e.g.: "La cagaste" (lit.: "you shat on it") or "Nos van a cagar." ("They're going to fuck us"). In Argentina and Chile, it can also mean "you screwed" or "scolded" somebody (e.g.: "Te cagaste a ese cabrón", "You took a shit on that guy"). In Panama "la cagada" ("the shit") refers to something or someone that makes everything else go wrong or the one detail that is wrong about something (and is thus the complete opposite of the American slang "the shit"); e.g., "Ese man es la cagada" ("That dude is the shit" i.e. a fuck up/fucks everything up), "La cagada aqui es el tranque" ("The traffic jams are shit here" i.e. are fucked up, fuck this place/everything up).


title: Spanish profanity

text: In Mexico City it may be used ironically to refer to a fortunate outcome: "Te cagaste" ("You really shat on yourself") or an unfortunate outcome such as "Estás cagado" meaning "you're fucked".


title: Spanish profanity

text: In Chile and Cuba, cagado ("full of shit") means "stingy" or "miserly". It can also mean "depressed" in some contexts ("Está cagado porque la polola lo pateó." translates as "He's depressed because his girlfriend dumped him.").


title: Spanish profanity

text: Also, in Chile it can also have a more neutral connotation. "La cagó" ("shat it") can be used to agree on a previous statement ("Chilean Spanish makes no sense", "Sí, la cagó")


title: Spanish profanity

text: Mierda is a noun meaning "shit." However, phrases such as "Vete a la mierda" (literally: "Go to (the) shit") would translate as "Go fuck yourself."


title: Spanish profanity

text: In Cuba, comemierda (shit-eater) refers to a clueless idiot, someone absurdly pretentious, or someone out of touch with his or her surroundings. Ex. "que comemierderia" (how stupid), "comerán mierda?" (are they stupid or what?) or "vamos a prestar atención y dejar de comer mierda" (Let's pay attention and stop goofing off). It is also used in both countries to describe someone who is "stuffy" and unnecessarily formal. In Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic comemierda refers solely to a snobbish person, while in Panama it refers to someone who is both snobbish and mean and/or hypocritical.


title: Spanish profanity

text: In Peru, "irse a la mierda" means "to be drunk as Hell." In Mexico, Cuba, Chile and also in Peru "estar hecho mierda" means to be very exhausted.


title: Spanish profanity

text: In northern Mexico and the southwestern United States (particularly California), the phrase mierda de toro(s) (literally "shit from bull(s)") is used often as a Spanish translation of bullshit in response to what is seen by the Spanish speaker as perceived nonsense.


title: Spanish profanity

text: It is also used generally to describe anything that is vexing or unpleasant, such as "tiempo de mierda" ("shitty weather") or "auto de mierda" ("piece-of-shit car"). A less common use is as a translation of the British profanity "bugger". The euphemisms miércoles (Wednesday) and eme (the letter "m") are sometimes used as minced oaths.


title: Spanish profanity

text: Caca is a mild word used mostly by children, loosely comparable to the English "poop" or "doo-doo." Comecaca is functionally similar to comemierdas.


title: Spanish profanity

text: Pedorrez (bullshit) is slang to characterize a stupid, stupid action or idea, especially lacking in energy, relevance, and depth.


title: Spanish profanity

text: Mojón A term originally meaning a little marker of the name of the street or a particular place in a road, it later went into general use to refer to a turd and thus became a synonym for shit; it is used freely as a substitute. In Cuba, the term "comemojones" is frequently used instead of "comemierda"; "Es un mojón." ("He's a piece of shit.") is also commonly used in said country.


title: Spanish profanity

text: ' () and its derivative words ' and are words used for referring to a man as a gay, or for criticizing someone for doing something that, according to stereotypes, only a gay person would do ( was originally the diminutive of the very common female name María del Carmen, a usage that has been lost). The suffix is often added to nouns to intensify their meaning.


title: Spanish profanity

text: In Spain, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and Cuba, the word has a stronger meaning with a very negative emphasis; akin to "faggot" or "poof" in the English language. In Argentina, Peru, Chile, and Mexico "maricón" or "marica" is especially used to denote a "chicken" (coward). In Chile, "maricón" also means "irrationally sadistic".


title: Spanish profanity

text: Two important exceptions are Colombia and Venezuela; in Colombia, "marica" is used as a slang term of affection among male friends or as a general exclamation (""¡Ay, marica!"" being equivalent to "Aw, man!" or "Dude!" in English).


title: Spanish profanity

text: , whereas in Venezuela "marico" is used as the masculine form with "marica" being feminine. as in Bucaramanga "marica" can also mean 'naive' or 'dull' you can hear sentences like "No, marica, ese marica si es mucho marica tan marica, marica", (Hey dude, that guy is such a fool faggot, boy) This often causes confusion or unintended offense among Spanish-speaking first-time visitors to Colombia. "Maricón", however, remains an insulting and profane term for homosexuals in Colombia as well. A similar case is seen in Venezuela, where the word "marico" is an insult; However, the word is widely used among Venezuelans as "dude" or "man." For example, "¿qué pasó marico?" would mean "what's up dude?" The word carries at least a third meaning in Venezuela because it often is used to show that someone is being very funny. For instance, after hearing a joke or funny comment from your friend, you laugh and say "haha sí eres marico haha" which would be equivalent to "haha you crack me up man."


title: Spanish profanity

text: Manflor (combination of the English loanword "man" and the word "flor" meaning "flower") and its variant manflora (a play on "manflor" using the word "flora") are used in Mexico and in the US to refer, usually pejoratively, to a lesbian. (In Eastern Guatemala, the variation "mamplor" is used.) It is used in very much the same way as the English word "dyke." For example: "Oye, güey, no toques a esa chica; todos ya saben que es manflora." ("Hey, dude, don't hit on that girl; everyone knows she's a dyke."). It can be used as an ironic term of endearment between friends, especially within the gay and lesbian communities.


title: Spanish profanity

text: With Spanish being a grammatically-gendered language, one's sexuality can be challenged with a gender-inappropriate adjective, much as in English one might refer to a flamboyant man or a transgender man as "her". Some words referring to a male homosexual end in an "a" but have the masculine article "el"—a deliberate grammatical violation. For example, although "maricona" refers to females, it may also be used as a compounded offensive remark towards a homosexual male, and vice versa.


title: Spanish profanity

text: Burciaga said that "pendejo" "is probably the least offensive" of the various Spanish profanity words beginning with "p" but that calling someone a "pendejo" is "stronger" than calling someone "estúpido". Burciaga said, "Among friends it can be taken lightly, but for others it is better to be angry enough to back it up."


title: Spanish profanity

text: In Mexico, "pendejo" most commonly refers to a "fool", "idiot", or "asshole". In Mexico, there are many proverbs that refer to "pendejos".


title: Spanish profanity

text: In Peru, it means a person who is opportunistic in an immoral or deceptively persuasive manner (usually involving sexual gain and promiscuity but not limited to it), and if used referring to a female ("ella es pendeja"), it means she is promiscuous (or perhaps a swindler). There the word "pendejada" and a whole family of related words have meanings that stem from these.


title: Spanish profanity

text: In South America, "pendejo" is also a vulgar, yet inoffensive, word for children. It also signifies a person with a disorderly or irregular life. In Argentina, "pendejo" (or "pendeja" for females) is a pejorative way of saying "pibe". The word, in Chile, Colombia, and El Salvador, can refer to a cocaine dealer, or it can refer to a "fool".


title: Spanish profanity

text: In Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, it has different meanings depending on the situation. It can range from "¡Te cogieron de pendejo!" ("You were swindled!") to "¡Qué tipa pendeja!" ("What a dumbass!" as when a strange woman behaves offensively and then suddenly leaves). In Mexico and some countries in Central America, especially El Salvador, "una pendejada"/"pendeja" is used to describe something incredibly stupid that someone has done.


title: Spanish profanity

text: In many regions, especially in Cuba, "pendejo" also means "coward" (with a stronger connotation), as in "¡No huyas, pendejo!" ("Don't run away, chicken-shit!") or "No seas pendejo!" ("Don't be such a coward!").


title: Spanish profanity

text: In South America, it refers to a person regarded with an obnoxiously determined advancement of one's own personality, wishes, or views (a "smartass").


title: Spanish profanity

text: In Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay, "pendejo" or "pendeja" refers to a child, usually with a negative connotation, like that of immaturity or a "brat". Also in Argentina, since "pendejo" literally means "pubic hair", it usually refers to someone of little to no social value.


title: Spanish profanity

text: In Peru, however, it does not necessarily have a negative connotation and can just refer to someone who is clever and street-smart.


title: Spanish profanity

text: In the Philippines, it is usually used to refer to a man whose wife or partner is cheating on him (i.e. a cuckold).


title: Spanish profanity

text: In North Sulawesi, Indonesia, pendo (a derivative of "pendejo") is used as profanity but with the majority of the population not knowing its meaning. The word was adopted during the colonial era when Spanish and Portuguese merchants sailed to this northern tip of Indonesia for spices.


title: Spanish profanity

text: Cabrón (lit.: "big goat" or "stubborn goat"), in the primitive sense of the word, is an adult male goat ("cabra" for an adult female goat) and is not offensive in Spain. It is also used as an insult, based on an old usage similar to that of "pendejo", namely, to imply that the subject is stubborn or in denial about being cheated on, hence the man has "horns" like a goat (extremely insulting).


title: Spanish profanity

text: The word is offensive in Mexico, Cuba, and Puerto Rico, as it means "asshole" and other insults in English. The seven-note musical flourish known as "Shave and a Haircut (Two Bits)", commonly played on car horns, is associated with the seven-syllable phrase "¡Chinga tu madre, cabrón!" (Go fuck your mother, asshole!). Playing the jingle on a car horn can result in a hefty fine for traffic violation if done in the presence of police or road rage if aimed at another driver or a pedestrian. In Mexico, "cabrón" refers to a man whose wife cheats on him without protest from him, or even with his encouragement.


title: Spanish profanity

text: The expression "¡Ah cabrón!" is used sometimes when one is shocked/surprised by something. Among close friends, the term is often inoffensive; however, it is not a word to be used casually with strangers.


title: Spanish profanity

text: To some extent, it can also be used with an ironically positive connotation meaning "great", "amazing", "phenomenal", or "badass". Such expressions would be said as "¡Estás cabrón!" or "¡Yo soy cabrón!". The word is quite flexibly used in Puerto Rico, and it can even have completely opposite meanings depending on the context. Best friends call each other ""cabrón"" in a friendly manner, while it may also be used in an offensive manner. One might say "Está cabrón" to describe something as very good or very bad depending on the circumstance.


title: Spanish profanity

text: In Panama, it is used as an adjective to mean something/someone very annoying (who pisses you off). The verb cabrear can mean "to piss off (someone)". This verb form is also used in Chile.


title: Spanish profanity

text: In Peru, cabro is a reference to a homosexual, hence "cabrón" is a superlative form ("big faggot"/"flaming faggot").


title: Spanish profanity

text: The term "cabrón" also means a handler of prostitutes, comparable to "pimp" in English. The most common way to refer to a pimp in Spanish is by using the term chulo as a noun. In some countries, chulo can be used as an adjective somewhat equivalent to "cool" ("Ese hombre es un chulo" = "That man is a pimp" versus "Ese libro es chulo" = "That book is cool"). The word chula is a completely benign reference to an adorable female or feminine object, as in "¡Ay, que chula!". In Chile, however, "chulo" and "chula" always mean "vulgar".


title: Spanish profanity

text: Gilipollas (and rarely gilipolla) is a term used mostly in Spain and lacking an exact translation to English; the most frequent equivalents when translated in books, films, and other media are "jerk", "jackass", "douchebag", "asshole", or "buffoon" (in English), "con" (in French), and "boludo" or "pendejo".


title: Spanish profanity

text: The canonical definition of a "gilipollas" is a person whose behavior, speech, outlook or general demeanor is inconsistent with the actual or potential consequences of their own intellectual inadequacy. Paragons of this taxon include stupid people unaware of their own stupidity or unwilling to accept the consequences thereof, people with an ostensible lack of self-criticism, people unable to realize their own limitations, people who engage in repeated self-defeating behavior, and even a category which is seldom captured in languages other than European Spanish—to wit, people characterized by "self-aware" idiocy or incompetence, with this self-awareness occasionally stressed to the point of (presumably futile) complacency.


title: Spanish profanity

text: Occasionally it may be used for people who appear to be unpleasant or stupid (without necessarily being either) out of extreme social ineptitude.


title: Spanish profanity

text: The etymology of the word itself immediately confirms its genuinely Peninsular Spanish origins and preponderance, as opposed to other profanities perhaps more linked to Latin America: it is the combination of the Caló jili, usually translated as "candid", "silly" or "idiot", and a word which according to different sources is either "polla" (listed above) or a colloquial evolution thereto of the Latin pulla (bladder).


title: Spanish profanity

text: Perhaps due to the alternative origins of the latter part of the word, there has been some controversy concerning its status as a "real" profanity, although its clear phonetic evocation of the word "polla" leaves little room for doubt, at least in its common daily use. It is due to this that attempts at a euphemism have at times become popular, as is the case with gilipuertas ("puerta" standing for door). Recently, similar phrases have appeared, especially in Spain, although most of them (such as soplapollas, "cock-blower") delve much further into plain profanity.


title: Spanish profanity

text: A usual derivation of the word "gilipollas" into an adjective form (or a false adjectival participle) is agilipollado/agilipollada. For example: "… está agilipollado/a" would mean "… is behaving like a "gilipollas"." Regardless of whether or not such condition or irreversible, the verb "estar" is always used, as opposed to "ser". Another Spanish construction with similar rationale is atontado, derived from tonto ("silly").