Catchphrases have long been a hallmark of US-American sit-coms and dramas, as well as reality, game and variety show programming. Because the phenomenon of the television catchphrase developed throughout the era of network, commercial broadcasting under Federal Communications Commission guidelines regulating profanity in network television, catchphrases traditionally have not included swear words. Nevertheless, certain past television catchphrases can be regarded as euphemistic alternatives of swearing expressions (e.g. ‘Kiss my grits!’), while contemporary catchphrases from cable or streaming series do include explicit swearing (e.g. ‘Don’t fuck it up!’). We examine a database of 168 popular catchphrases from a 70-year period of US-American television programming according to categories for bad language and impoliteness formulae. We identify three categories of catchphrases based on structural-functional similarities to swearing expressions, and we trace the distribution of these categories over time and across networks. The data reveal a trend towards explicit swearing in catchphrases over time, not only in series on cable and streaming services, but across networks. We conclude that the expressive nature of catchphrases and their structural-functional properties render the inclusion of swear words both more palatable to a television audience and more compatible with television norms, thus propagating catchphrase swearing on cable and streaming television services, and mitigating the use of swear words on network television. Due to appropriation phenomena, swearing catchphrases may serve to blur the lines between actually swearing and simply invoking a swearing catchphrase, thereby potentially increasing tolerance for swearing both on television and off.

标语长期以来一直是美国情景喜剧和戏剧以及真人秀、游戏和综艺节目的标志。由于电视流行语现象在整个网络时代发展起来，根据联邦通信委员会关于网络电视亵渎行为的商业广播指导方针，流行语传统上不包括脏话。尽管如此，某些过去的电视流行语可以被视为咒骂表达的委婉替代（例如“亲我的沙砾！”），而有线电视或流媒体系列的当代流行语确实包括明确的咒骂（例如“不要操它！”）。我们根据不良语言和不礼貌公式的类别检查了一个包含 70 年美国电视节目的 168 个流行标语的数据库。我们根据与脏话表达的结构功能相似性确定了三类流行语，并追踪这些类别随时间和跨网络的分布。数据显示，随着时间的推移，流行语中出现明确宣誓的趋势，不仅在有线电视和流媒体服务的系列中，而且在网络中。我们得出的结论是，标语的表达性及其结构功能特性使包含脏话的电视观众更容易接受，并且更符合电视规范，从而在有线电视和流媒体电视服务上传播标语脏话，并减少使用在网络电视上骂脏话。由于挪用现象，