Píča

Drawing of the symbol píča

Píča (Czech pronunciation: [piːt͡ʃa]), sometimes short piča or pyča [pɪt͡ʃa], is a Czech and Slovak profanity that refers to the vagina similar to the English word cunt. It is often represented as a symbol of a spearhead, a rhombus standing on one of its sharper points with a vertical line in the middle, representing a vulva.

The meaning is clear for most Czechs, Slovaks and Hungarians. In some other languages it has other spellings (e.g. in the non-Slavic Hungarian language it is written as "picsa"), but has similar pronunciation and carries the same meaning and profanity. Drawing this symbol is considered a taboo, or at least unaccepted by mainstream society.

Symbol in culture

This symbol has occurred in a few Czech movies, including Bylo nás pět. In the 1969 drama The Blunder (Ptákovina), Milan Kundera describes the havoc, both public and private, that ensues after the Headmaster of a school draws the symbol on a blackboard.^[1]

Jaromír Nohavica confessed, in the 1983-song Halelujá, to "drawing short lines and rhombuses on a plaster" (in Czech: tužkou kreslil na omítku čárečky a kosočtverce).^[2]

See also

• Lozenge- a similar symbol

Notes

1. Jan Čulík, Milan Kundera, 2000, electronic version on University of Glasgow website

External links