Roger's Profanisaurus: The Magna Farta

by Viz Magazine, Graham Dury, Davey Jones (Compiler)

Now fully revised and updated to include 10,000 foul-mouthed definitions,it's a riot of political incorrectness gone mad that fully deserves to take pride of place on lavatory cisterns throughout the land.

Genres: Humor, Nonfiction, Reference, Comedy, Dictionaries, Language

480 pages, Paperback

First published October 20, 1998

About the author

Viz is a British adult comic magazine founded in 1979 by Chris Donald. It parodies British comics of the post-war period, notably The Beano and The Dandy, but with extensive profanity, toilet humour, black comedy, surreal humour and generally sexual or violent storylines. It also sends up tabloid newspapers, with mockeries of articles and letters pages.

Reviews

[Ray · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read for the fifth time.

Inventive, profane, gross, puerile, funny, educative, sarcastic, ironic - and all in a huge slab of a book that really will break the cistern.

Not for everyone - the profanity and misogyny will put some people off. I come back to it because it makes me laugh.

I keep it in my smaller library and dip in and out at leisure whilst driving from the ladies tee.

[Todd N · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every great man has a source of solace that they turn to in troubled times: Thoreau had Walden, Machiavelli had Livy's History Of Rome, Fonzie had Arnold's Drive-In, and I have Roger's Profanisaurus Rex.

When the vicissitudes of life begin to wear on me, I find it refreshes my mind to peruse and contemplate definitions such as Jehovah's stiffness (a lasting erection that appears at an inopportune time), gentleman's relish (an exceedingly polite term for jizz), and German cornflake (a scab from genital herpes). After several pages my eyes are watering too much to read further.

This quote from Machiavelli sums up my feelings about this book better than I can express:

“When evening comes, I return home and go into my study. On the threshold I strip off my muddy, sweaty, workday clothes, and put on the robes of court and palace, and in this graver dress I enter the antique courts of the ancients and am welcomed by them, and there I taste the food that alone is mine, and for which I was born. ... And for the space of four hours I forget the world, remember no vexation, fear poverty no more, tremble no more at death: I pass indeed into their world.”

[Ian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Can one ever be said to have completed the Profanisaurus?

I have read the contributions over the years in the magazine and on the website - if you like VIZ, have the sense of humor of a six year old and enjoy annoying your partner by laughing in bed, then this deserves a place on your bedside table.

[Sam · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is crude, rude school boy humour at its best (worst) that pulls together all the words and terms uncovered and created by Viz. This is not one for those who are easily offended but if you like gutter humour this is the book for you. Set out like a 'proper' dictionary this is an easy reference book that can be picked up at any time.

[Robert Brokenmouth · Rating 5 out of 5]

The astonishing thing is that these words and phrases are in current actual use, not just in internet land. Vivid stuff, not for the faint hearted. Find out what a night-watchman really is.

[Adam · Rating 5 out of 5]

How could this not be a 5-star review? - It's 624 pages of Roger's Profanisaurus. Endless joy.

[Helen Marquis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Obviously the best book ever written. Personal favourites? Mumblers, Lego Hands and Jehovah's Wetness. Guaranteed laughs every time you open it up.

[Keith Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you feel that your profanities lack color and imagination, this book will inspire you. Not for the faint of heart. And be warned that a lot of the references are circular, so one euphemism for breaking wind, for example, will simply provide another euphemism. So if you're pure of heart when you start, you need to read the whole book to figure out where they're going, and what they're talking about. A good tome for the lavatory, because you can open it at random, and generally find something new and amusing.

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

The very definition of toilet humour.

[Martin B · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best.

[Moomo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Impossible to read without giving yourself a hernia.

[Monty Milne · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is verbally inventive, smutty, puerile, and amusing. At least to me. The blend of clever literary, historical or cultural references with the lowest forms of sexual or lavatorial humour appeals to my inner schoolboy/undergraduate. So for example a turd waiting to be delivered is described as -

"Ethelbrown the Ready, a Pretender to the Porcelain Throne"

And here is a definition which also encapsulates the style of the whole:

Hatchback. n. A woman with prominent buttocks. "..Look at the arse on that Mother Superior over there by Guercini's altarpiece of the burial of St Petronilla, your Holiness. What a hatchback. You could stand a pint on her parcel shelf."

This kind of humour echoes Chaucer. I like it, but I can understand why others wouldn't.

[xmikerx75 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rude, crude and funnier than your mum

It's never going to win awards, maybe other than the most offensive book one. If that exists.

But, as the review title suggests, it's funnier than your mum. Yes, yours.

[Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

hilarious :)

[Derren Bibby · Rating 5 out of 5]

Filthy rude and very stupid. Total gold!

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I grew up in New England but after reading the Profanisaurus can now swear like a Geordie sailor. It's a boon!

[Gjfreestone · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pant-wettingly hilarious. A work of genius.