Swear like a geek
I was all set to do a post about alternate swear words- words used, often made up, to get around the dreaded censors, avoid R or M ratings, etc. from various sources, then I read an article about "frack" from Battlestar Galactica. Sure, it's only one word, but it's pretty much the same sort of thing I was going to do. It took the wind from my sails on what I was going to write about these words, so instead, I'm just going to list a few of them. There are a lot more out there, these are just a few of the ones that spring to mind.
Smeg. Short for smegma, was made famous by the British sci-fi comedy Red Dwarf. It's invaded my vocabulary, and even now in Japan I use it once in a while.
Krif / kriffing. Coming from the Star Wars Universe, more specifically from the Mandalorian language that comes from several books, most by Karen Travis; for those who want to swear like Jango Fett. There are a few other words that are usable from Mandalorian- dig around starwars.com, you'll find a link to a downloadable Mandalorian dictionary and notes on grammatical structure.
Perhaps more known, but less naturally usable to me, from Star Wars are the words "Stang" (essentially "dang") and "Podoo" (Huttese for fecal matter, to put it mildly). "Podoo" appears first in real word time in Return of the Jedi. You'll hear it again in the prequels.
Even more obscure for Star Wars words is "lurdo". While not technically a swear, it's pretty much synonymous with "jerk" and was used in the Ewoks cartoons in the eary to mid 1980s.
"Gorram" from Firefly/Serenity is pretty easy to find the correlation for. "Shiny", another word from the same source, is infinitely usable slang, though it doesn't fall into the swear category, though it could be substituted for a swear in a sarcastic sort of way.
You could probably write a book on things Jay Ward slipped past the censors on Rocky and Bullwinkle. I'd have to do a lot more research, but Prince Charming describing his former job as a "hogswatter"- a euphemism for masturbating- in an episode of Fractured Fairy Tales springs to mind.
If I may add one of my own to the list- it shouldn't count since its not from a fictional world, but it gets into the geek/nerd territory- is "unfossilized coprolite". Ok, it doesn't roll off the tongue, but it sounds erudite, and it is. A bit. A coprolite is basically fossilized remains of fecal matter, a word I came across in archeology classes.
There are a lot more out there- including some I haven't listed that I was going to use in my original article idea. I encourage you to go out there, confront your inner geek, and start swearing like the Gorram smegging kriffing podoo smelling fracking lurdos that you are.
Smeg. Short for smegma, was made famous by the British sci-fi comedy Red Dwarf. It's invaded my vocabulary, and even now in Japan I use it once in a while.
Krif / kriffing. Coming from the Star Wars Universe, more specifically from the Mandalorian language that comes from several books, most by Karen Travis; for those who want to swear like Jango Fett. There are a few other words that are usable from Mandalorian- dig around starwars.com, you'll find a link to a downloadable Mandalorian dictionary and notes on grammatical structure.
Perhaps more known, but less naturally usable to me, from Star Wars are the words "Stang" (essentially "dang") and "Podoo" (Huttese for fecal matter, to put it mildly). "Podoo" appears first in real word time in Return of the Jedi. You'll hear it again in the prequels.
Even more obscure for Star Wars words is "lurdo". While not technically a swear, it's pretty much synonymous with "jerk" and was used in the Ewoks cartoons in the eary to mid 1980s.
"Gorram" from Firefly/Serenity is pretty easy to find the correlation for. "Shiny", another word from the same source, is infinitely usable slang, though it doesn't fall into the swear category, though it could be substituted for a swear in a sarcastic sort of way.
You could probably write a book on things Jay Ward slipped past the censors on Rocky and Bullwinkle. I'd have to do a lot more research, but Prince Charming describing his former job as a "hogswatter"- a euphemism for masturbating- in an episode of Fractured Fairy Tales springs to mind.
If I may add one of my own to the list- it shouldn't count since its not from a fictional world, but it gets into the geek/nerd territory- is "unfossilized coprolite". Ok, it doesn't roll off the tongue, but it sounds erudite, and it is. A bit. A coprolite is basically fossilized remains of fecal matter, a word I came across in archeology classes.
There are a lot more out there- including some I haven't listed that I was going to use in my original article idea. I encourage you to go out there, confront your inner geek, and start swearing like the Gorram smegging kriffing podoo smelling fracking lurdos that you are.