Let the Blogging Recommence!

I'm a bigger fan of the reverse-cuss replacement, where at first the person shouts a "soft cuss" and then the pain or problem increases so the next few words escalate into something censurable.

But "shiitake mushrooms" is my second favorite.

Aw, this reminds me of my dear departed Dad, who often screamed GOD BLESS IT!!! or yes, even "God bless America" when he couldn't say the real thing. Now I find myself saying it too, partly because it makes me think of him and laugh, and partly because I don't need my son to inadvertently offend my southern family. Of course, he's only two months old, so I think I have time...

Here in France, it's super cute to hear little kids saying, "Zut!" but curse words don't carry the same weight here than they do back home and it's socially acceptable for just about anyone to let a few choice words rip, except small children. That being said, I'm eagerly waiting for the day our son lets out a stream of French curses that he'll undoubtedly pick up from his father, cursing at Warhammer Online or whatever MMORPG he's playing at the time. :)

A friend of mine exclaimed "Shut the door!" when he dropped a glass in the sink. I thought that was pretty great, and by no way offensive at all.

Has to be "Smeg" of Red Dwarf. I loved that word in the show, and it's smegging flexibility!

"Smeg" is right up there with Battlestar Galactica's "frak," but my all-time favorite is W.C. Field's "Godfrey Daniels!"

I was once mid-swear in traffic as someone cut me off and I realized I had kids in the back seat. I said, "What the...?" and the youngest in the backseat finished the sentence by yelling, "Chicken!"

Thus "What the chicken?!" is born.

I've used "son-of-a-monkey!" before. Not sure why, just kinda came out one day.

My favorite to use is the dramatically yelled "CURSES!"

This is histarical because I actually use God Bless America when I do something stupid or the like. My other favorite "CRP" (cussing-replacement phrase) is DOGGONEIT. You have to say it quick for it to be effective.

Often used "Fruit Loop" (brecky cereal used as a replacement cuss word) or the very British "Oh Bollocks".

My most common ones are "frak" and "felgercarb", followed closely by "Sunny beach!" (for s-o-b)

Oh, beaver's house!

Not replacing a particularly "bad" cuss word but one of my favorites all the same.

Son of a Sea Captain

I always like using the old cartoon-style "Rassa frassum..." grumbling, and "Frickin' frack!" for exclamations.

"30 Rock" always makes me laugh when Liz Lemon says, "Blergh," or "By the Power of Thor!"

Back in the day, my college roommates and I came up with "Son of a nun!" to replace swearwords our Christian college frowned upon. We figured that each component was completely inoffensive while the whole referred to something that was, if not beyond the pale, close to it. Plus, it rhymes.

Firefly's Gorramit Mal!

And also Smeg and Frak.

yes... yes... i am a geek.

My husband & I moved to the deep south and you see a LOT of bumper stickers that we consider "empty gesture americanism"

Our favorite is the "God Bless America" and we always say it together in the car just the way you described it. I got it from my Dad and we always get a good laugh out of it.

It's a great way to deal with living in this environment.

Thanks for all the laughs that you provide as well.

Mikey

In my own webcomic [nettserier.no] (which, though maintaining a pretty dark tone and requiring its readers to know lots of pop culture references from the eighties and early nineties, I want to keep cuss-free), I invented the cuss "goat cheese" (it looks better in Norwegian, I swear). I use it exactly as I would have used frak or smeg, and I find it strange how GREAT the word is for my purpose. When the protagonist is silently thinking "Goat cheese" after slipping on a banana peel, you just KNOW it's a swear, plus it helps me humour up the more serious strips -- I'm trying to find a way to make people laugh in every strip, but my storylines include monsters, horror and deaths of loved ones. That's not very funny, really. By inserting a cuss replacement, I have the element of giggle I need to serve everybody: When the protagonist's five-year-old daughter is found dead, and he proclaims "Goat cheese. Goat cheese. GOAT CHEESE!", it's the perfect way of giving those of my readers who come only for the laughs what they want while at the same time not making the situation any less serious in-continuity, since goat cheese is my universe's equivalent of the F word and my character thus can say it, while shedding a tear, without breaking character.

Cuss replacements are severely underestimated.

Oooh, and I loved what they did in Firefly, which had real cussing, and the pretty dirty kind too, but it was all in Chinese. I think that must be my favorite cuss replacement technique EVER.

I use "son of a monkey" regularly, too. "For the love of monkeys" nicely avoids blasphemy, and calms the temper.

One time I actually lost my temper while TRYING to say "for the love of monkeys" and it came out "FOR THE LOVE OF [f-word]!" Failing to swear intelligibly probably only made me angrier at the time.

And the word my brother and I coined for swear-sounding words that aren't swears: profanyms. And, of course, the similar alternatives to blasphemy (like "Got dandruff!" or "Cheese and rice!") are blasphenyms.

Anyone else ever notice that "shuck!" -- singular -- sounds like two swear words put together?

my grandmother said "pie, cheese, and crust got damp down cellar" and you could tell how mad she was depending on how far along she got with that. sometimes i'd hear her just mutter a little bit of it ("cheese." or "crust!") but if she ever got to "cellar" even the dog would hide.

I thought I was the only person that uses "God Bless America!" Hee. I'm not alone!

I've been using "FUDGE!" since high school, so I was amused greatly when it became a CWR in the Harry Potter series.

I've also been known to say Fudgesicle!, Doggoneit!, and Frig! (which can be used as an adjective, noun and verb).

Long Live CWR's!

I've used "Cheese and Rice" for a long time too! Once while looking for a nice pumpkin before Halloween, I pointed out a humongous one to my wife and said "Cheese-and-Rice that's a huge one!" Immediately behind me I heard a little girl exclaim "Jesus Christ, mommy!"

"No sweetie, he said 'Cheese and Rice.'"

Other than that, I also like to use the "old prospector" cuss words like "dagnabbit" and "consarnit."

This is the best list EVER.

I was always partial to "God's thumbs" (10 points if you can guess which book that's from!), but I rarely use it. I'm bilingual, so I'll swear in French if I was speaking English, and English if I was speaking French. My fave is "merde" :D

I like the really hick-type of expressions. "Dagnabbit" is pretty rad.

I've picked up Firefly's "Gorramit!"

Sometimes I say: "Son of a Wichita lineman!"

A classic is "sheep dip!"

Some kids in my high school liked to silently mouth "vacuum beach" at one another.

A close high school friend and I used to say to one another: "you worthless punk son of a fat motherless cow with diarrhea!"