Copropraxia

Copropraxia is a type of complex motor tic involving involuntary offensive gestures, for example the V sign or sticking up the middle finger.

Like any other tic, the person does not mean to do it and it does not show what they were thinking at the time.

Copropraxia is not as well known as coprolalia, the vocal version.

Misconceptions
The swearing is not due to anger (although feeling angry might increase tics and so bring forth coprolalia). Many people swear, but to be classed as copropraxia, the swearing must be inappropriate to the situation. For example:

'' Person A is walking down the street, sees someone he does not like and sticks his middle finger up at them. ''

'' Person B is walking down the street, sticks his middle finger up at someone, feels embarassed and apologises. ''

In this example, whether it was seen as acceptible or not, Person A swore for a reason (the seeing of an enemy), whereas Person B merely swore. He was also embarassed by it, because he did not mean to swear, and so apologised.