251 thoughts on “Made-Up Cuss Words”

  4. We weren’t allowed to say much of anything when we were kids: “Rats” was one exception.

    Nowadays, I tend to use “Argh” a lot on the internet. Hopefully, the “gh” at the end is keeping me from presenting myself as a deranged and irritable pirate.

    1. I used to say “rats” all the time, too, until my IFB school made us all feel guilty for any kind of saying that expressed frustration. Cuz, you know, frustration means you’re not trusting God. I was in second grade at the time.

    4. Everyone had different rules, but they acted like their rules were the only set, and expected you to know them without being told. My mom allowed “rats” and “shucks” but not “shoot”. My dad allowed all the above, but not “gee” “gosh” “golly” “heck” or “darn”. The christian school was a minefield, because each teacher seemed to have his or her own list of “dirty” words. And no one seemed to agree what made a word bad. Was it using it outside its intended context or literal meaning? Were certain words always bad, regardless of context? Were all euphemisms and minced oaths bad? Even the really obscure ones? If you don’t want me to use certain words, at least let me know how to avoid them. We don’t allow our kids to take the Lord’s name in vain (after all, it is a Commandment) and we don’t allow them to call each other “stupid” or its synonyms, but we don’t make a big deal about any other words, and they rarely swear.

    5. I always have considered myself to have pretty tame language–I prefer creative use of non-obscene yet extremely descriptive words to the made-up sort of swearing–but even I was taken aback when, after letting out a relatively innocuous “oh my goodness” while helping watch a child, I was informed by his mother not to use that sort of language around her son.

      I thought she misheard, so I quickly said, “oh, no, don’t worry, I only said ‘oh my goodness’.” She looked at me very seriously and said, “I know.”

      I still never have quite understood why she considered that so horrendously offensive…

      1. She might not have liked it because it SOUNDED like “God.” She might have disliked any extraneous words not matter how innocuous because she wanted to let her “yea be yea and her nay nay.” It’s possible too that she’d read Ps. 144:2 – “My goodness, and my fortress; my high tower, and my deliverer” – in which God is called “my goodness.” Or it could be that she likes being “holier than thou” and takes pleasure in putting other people down in order to supposedly look super-spiritual herself.

      2. I heard that expression (“Oh my goodness”) preached against at the Wilds camp one time, because goodness is a character trait of God and we are taking His character in vain when we say that. 🙄
        Crazy the rules they can come up with.

    6. I’m still amused that we all think that copying Robert Newton’s characterization of Long John Silver – making it at least 3 indirections away from reality, counting Stevenson himself – makes us talk like pirates. Really? And I suppose we think pirates had parrots on their shoulders, too. Pretty funny.

        1. Arrr, matey. I clean forgot about the patch and the leg. (Wow. I can hear his voice saying that. I’m waaaay to conditioned)

  6. “Wicked” was popular when my sister was in high school: “wicked cool”, “wicked fun.” My parents chided her for using “wicked” as if it were a GOOD thing.

      1. Actually, Darrell, it’s a New England thing. I have friends in NH who use it, too. (I guess it’s because they’re just so wicked cool.) :mrgreen:

      2. Yep, as an ex-Bostonian (born and bred), I must agree that “wicked” is wicked Bostonian.

      1. That is an improper use of the term wicked. Something can be ‘wicked good’ but not simply ‘wicked.’ I mean, unless it’s evil or something. 😎

        1. You, sir, are obviously not from New England. “Wicked” is not only an intensifier (“wicked good”) but a descriptor all of its own (and usually a positive one). 😎

    2. LOL! My mom used to say “Holy Mother of God!” a lot. But that had nothing to do with fundyism.

    1. I remember when I first began going to a fundy church, a lot of us, mostly women would say “Oh, my soul” about everything. It got rather annoying so eventually I stopped saying it.

  12. I remember saying, “O stink!” when I was traveling in a summer group for a fundy college. The faculty member traveling with us replied, “You don’t have swear about it!”
    No, I didn’t say it during a concert.

  14. My daughter made up her own.

    “What the cheese?!”

    (To which the answer is often, “Cheese, Gromit!”)

  17. I say “oh my cheese” and “what the fish”. Not because I was raised fundamentalist, but because my two year old sister, and five year old brothers repeat EVERYTHING I say.

  18. The idea of minced oaths always struck me as anal retentive. I was sitting at a faculty table one time and used the expression “as luck would have it.” Another faculty member attempted to lecture me on the use of luck in front of everyone. I cut her off by simply stating “I said luck because I meant luck.”

    After I had left Maranatha, I came back and accidentally used the word “gee.” An administrator attempted to rebuke me because I used a bad word. As I left, I turned to him and said “I used ‘gee’ because I meant gee. Had I wanted to use the word ‘Jesus,’ I would have used the word Jesus. The same goes for heck, gosh, darn, and fudge. People in the real world don’t bat an eyelash. The only ones who get their panties in a wad are anal-retentive fundies like you, and that is the reason why you-all feel so intimidated and insecure.” The man literally went unhinged in the hallway as I simply walked away from him and out the door.

    2. “The same goes for heck, gosh, darn, and fudge. People in the real world don’t bat an eyelash.” Not quite true, but not because they find it sinful. People in the non-evangelical-subculture realworld find such faux swearwords a bit ridiculous.

    3. The pastor of our fundy church in Michigan can’t stand it when someone says “luck” or “lucky.”

    1. Good ole King Saul!

      The KJV introduced lots of forbidden: pisseth, harlot, ass, ba$t@rd.

  21. Though idk; the Bible says in so many words not to use “idle words” (“But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.”). They might have a point. I mean, what are idle words? 😐 😕

      2. That was my impression also (though useless conversation could certainly include gossip as Tiarali says). Therefore, when I drop something heavy on my foot and subsequently exclaim “oh shit!,” that wouldn’t be useless conversation because (1) it’s not a conversation and (2) swearing is scientifically proven to deaden the effect of pain. 😆

    1. Loving the Music Man reference. Don’t forget rebuttoning the knickerbockers…
      A local youth drama company put the show on. They did great, but forgot the first rule of theater: when you bring the house down, WAIT until the audience stops applauding. The salesmen train “song” was so good that Harold Hill’s entrance was completely snowed by applause.

      1. Whenever it gets to the line, “Words like SWELL!” I always want someone to yell back, “Shit, yeah!” 😀

  23. Oh, but for the TRULY serious fundy (read: “the one who God loves more”), made-up cuss words are not acceptable. Because those are just replacing real cuss words, which makes them just as evil as the real thing. 🙄

    I remember getting this lecture in chapel at my fundy U (instead of, you know, teaching from the Bible) and trying not to laugh. 😆

    1. I have to admit, I’m kind of with the truly serious fundies on this one, at least in the sense that it always struck me as a little silly when people purposely replace a swear word with a more innocuous word because they don’t want to offend Jesus or whatever. It’s like they think they could slip one by him or something. It seems pretty condescending to act like Jesus wouldn’t know what you REALLY meant to say when you said, “Shoot!” after spilling your cup of coffee all over the stack of forms you were filling out. I mean, as a non-Christian I don’t really care one way or the other, but it just seems odd. It’s like the implication is that Jesus is a bit like a 5 year old when it comes to being able to sneak naughty words by him or something. That just goes for the people who try not to curse out of some kind of religious obligation though. I can understand the people who do it out of a desire to be tactful or because they find cursing insensitive, crude, and lacking in creativity.

    2. Christian school faculty meetings often involved rooting out what the latest made up cuss words were for this reason. Then they were banned and we had to punish kids for using them. So they used new ones. Which were discussed at the next “what replacement words are they cussing with?” meeting and then banned.

      It was endless. And stupid. Being the language police is beyond ridiculous.

      1. My sister got in the car and must have dropped 5 or 6 “f bombs” within the first couple of minutes… I guess I shoud have sternly corrected her…. 😕

    3. The actual preaching on it always seemed hypocritical to me (at least when I heard it) because by the end of the sermon you realize that the preacher basically just spent the entire time swearing (by his definition) at the audience. But, for some reason, he was covered by some special dispensation (“It’s okay to say these words as long as you are preaching against them!”) Seems like there would be more important things for Christians to worry about…

  24. Watergate happened when I was in Bible college. (yeah, I’m that old) My best friend and I used the “expletive deleted” that occurred frequently in the published portions of the transcripts of the famous tapes. We’d say, “Expletive deleted! I left my Biblical Research assignment at home!” It’s a bit cumbersome when you really need a verbal pressure valve. I have recently found myself using “stink” but have no idea where I picked it up. I’m not around any fun dies ….fun dies… STINK! Why does my spell check insist on making me use incorrect plural spelling for fundy?! Arrgh! Change the Y to an i and add -es, but NO! It insists on fun dies! Wait. What in the blue blazes? Well, I’ll be jiggered! Fundy = fun dies. That’s really a thing of beauty, when you think about it. Can you spell ironic?

  25. Son of a Biscuit Eater!

    What the Sam Hill is a-goin’ on here?
    *Beans Mr Taggert?
    I’d say you had about enough.

    1. Don, my dad used “What in the Sam Hill…?” all the time. Also, “Judas Priest!!” 🙂

      1. I often say sam hill, and just to be cute I will say h-e-double toothpix. :mrgreen:

    1. Frakkin’ toasters!! 🙂 🙂

      I love saying frak b/c I can say it most everywhere AND I get geek points for using it.

      1. True, it’s good way to express frustration and endear yourself to fellow sci-fi fans.

  30. Shit. I just snorted Four Roses Single barrel up my nose. Funny post.

    1. Jimmeney Christmas, Doc! it’s 3 am according to yer timestamp! drinkin till 3 on a weeknight?!?!

    1. I use “blerp” sometimes just because “blerp” is fun to say and fits the same rule that it can be used as a noun or a verb or an adjective that the real curses have.

  33. My husband’s office uses the phrase “hash brown”s to replace the more offensive “a$$ clowns.”

    Let your yes be yes and your no be no. Using made up swear words to appear more holy is just goofy. Using made up swear words so you don’t have to explain yourself to your child’s teacher is smart.

  34. When I was in Catholic school, one of my friends used to say “Jesus, who for love of me, died on the Cross at Calvary,” instead of just saying “Jesus.” My stepmom still thought that was offensive.

  35. I was around fundies who said ‘bah’ a lot. I now say it, not because I’m trying to avoid swearing, but just because it’s in my vocabulary now. They also called people a ‘joombie’ instead of a different offensive name.

  36. I remember when traveling for a fundy college a pastor on the west coast getting on the subject on minced oaths in his Sunday morning sermon. He said, “When you say ‘We sure had a hectic time.’ You are really saying, ‘We sure had a hellish time.'”

    1. Are you saying that he didn’t know the meaning of the word ‘hectic’, which has nothing to do with a certain theological region of eternal punishment?

      1. That’s right. He really didn’t know what he was talking about! 👿

    2. More SFL: assuming they fully understand your mental processes, including subconscious ones, by misunderstanding a sentence fragment.

    3. Having absolutely no vocabulary and misspronunciating words is classic fundy. Some years ago a PCC graduate was attending our church and preached a whole sermon about “prejudisms” otherwise known as prejudices. A week later another PCC grad did a whole sermon on “laminating” intending to preach on lamenting over our sinfulness.
      Moral of the story: Be sure you are properly laminating your predjudisms.
      Or at least pronounce it correctly. 😉

      1. You’re so right! Why do they do that, to torture me? The pastor of the church we left last September made up lots of words. One was “deservant.” He’d say, “We’re not deservant of heaven, we’re deservant of hell.” ‘The proper word there is deserving.

        The worst earsore I think is when they say Hagg-eee- eye for Haggai. There is no e in Haggai, it’s supposed to be pronounced Hag-eye but every fundy preacher and those reading the Bible portions at the front ALWAYS pronounced it Hagg-eee-eye and it just made me cringe. Especially when they continued to mispronounce it all the way through the sermon! Talk about wanting to cuss I sure did! 👿

        1. Wow, you just brought back a little trigger there! I completely blocked that out, but as soon as I read your mispronunciation, I couldn’t help laughing, because you’re absolutely right!

  37. Up here in New England, one of the standard cuss words is “frig” (“Frig this!” “Wicked friggin’ cold this mawnin!”) The parallel with another word is more than obvious, but I read somewhere that it actually originated in Maine among seamen — it’s a derivation of “frigate.”

    My mother, who was from New York, used to express frustration by saying, “Oh, pish!” I’ve never heard that from anyone else.

    As for the use of words and phrases such as “gee” and “gosh darn,” I read a sermon not long ago which opined that God has better things to do with His time than to worry about whether people use His name flippantly. Taking the Lord’s name in vain has nothing to do with cussing, unless it’s deliberately and maliciously used to curse another human being. It has a whole lot more to do with things like hypocrisy and how we live our lives in general.

    1. In a newspaper in TN one of the local columnists said that God’s name is not God. So, in his opinion, you could say that all you want as long you didn’t use a name of God. Ill-logic abounds from all sides of most issues.

  38. Hey, this reminds me of that youtube video from a few years back with that Dean of Students (or whoever he was) from BJU. As I remember that one does get a little graphic, especially for a fundy, although the logic is very consistent to their way of thinking.

    1. That video wasn’t specifically about minced oaths. It was just about the origin and use of words.

  39. you sons of a silly person
    your mother was a hampster, and your father smelt of elderberries, you wipers of other people’s bottoms!

    3. Now THAT’S the kind of “swearing” I like to do. It’s just so much more entertaining–and you don’t have to watch yourself lest an errant minced oath of ultimate evil slip out in the presence of the wrong person.

      1. Hay-men to that! I’m on the same page as you, plus it is so much more fun! 😀

    4. I used that quote at the last basketball game I was at. When the opposing team made a basket or a good play, I’d call out to no one in particular, “your mother was hamster!!!” As if that changed anything. Though they did end up losing…

  41. I’m partial to using friggin’ or freakin’ myself. I’m also amused by ‘frack’ from the new Battlestar Galactica series. Not sure if it is spelled the same but it just amuses me that ‘fracking’ is a way to extract oil.

    In college, we were banned from saying any type of minced oaths, even ‘crap’ and ‘sucks’. We made up our own ones like ‘buttmonkey’ though we only used it among students. sonofabaptist!

    1. I said (OK, still say) “buttmonkey” a lot, but I heard it on Beavis & Butthead when I was like, 8.

    3. My (public) high school biology teacher once chastised my classmate for saying, “that sucks.”

      “Don’t say ‘sucks'” said the teacher.

      “Ok. That blows,” replied the student.

      😆

  44. I didn’t grow up fundy but the church I grew up in had a lot of sanctimonious prigs like fundies. My parents were hypocritical in this area. They’d cuss with the real words, but we kids weren’t allowed to say the fake ones. Once I got my mouth washed out with soap for saying Golly. This was hypocrisy at it’s worst. 👿

    I try not to say that many supposed cuss words, but I will say them, all except the F word which I despise. Sometimes no other word will do but the real one! 😉

    1. The f-word makes me crazy because people use it all.the.time for no reason. I was working at a fast food restaurant and a guy there used it for just about every part of speech there was. I mean come on, really??

      I do say freaking. And bloody stupid on occasion. I have used Ron Weasley’s bloody hell, but not seriously 😛 My brother uses Hades, and h-e-double-hocky-sticks.

      I did say “darn it” one time when my football team missed a touchdown attempt, and my mom got on to me. Then again, she doesn’t like crap, or sucks, or butt, or…. And no more happiness!

      1. My sports language is a lot stronger than “darn.” I think my first cursing lessons came in the form of shouting obscenities at Red Sox players and chanting “Boston sucks!” with the Bleacher Creatures at Yankee Stadium. I think that, as a New Yorker, swearing is part of my cultural heritage. 😛 😀

  45. We used to use these phrases from a movie we always watched as kids:

    “You dirt-eating piece of slime, you scum sucking pig, you son of a motherless goat!”

    :mrgreen:

    And NOT ONE of them was considered “cussing” so we could get away with them in private school! 😆

    1. I have actually heard someone say “son of a motherless goat” but I have no idea where it came from. What movie is it?

  46. “Puke!”is the one most often coming out of my mouth. Also, “Stinking!”
    And those are not necessarily to replace other “bad” words – I didn’t grow up in a house where those words were used, so I have never used them (regularly – can’t honestly say absolutely never 😳 )

    1. Gotta be honest – I just realized I do say crap and heck a lot. Bothers my wife that I do

      1. My husband doesn’t like it when I say “crap.” But SOME things ARE crap!

        1. He doesn’t like when you say crap, but he “doesn’t hear” the F-word in movies? 😯 That’s kinda funny. Maybe you should drop the F-bomb a few times to see if he notices. 😆

        2. It all has to do with expectations: he overlooks cursing from construction workers or bad guys because that’s what one would expect, but he doesn’t expect his sweet, demure little wife to have a temper.

        3. It is interesting to go to a church that is a lot less fundy than your previous one. In our current church we have a lady, who took a medical missions trip to Haiti. When she came back, she gave a report of her time down there and was very impressed with the way the Chrisitian prayed in Haiti. She said, “When they pray they really pray. They don’t just pray for the heck of it.” I believe at the other churches I have been in, that would have been the last time, they would have asked her to speak in church. Also, after a recent service, I had a fellow church member say to me, “That was a heck of a service!” and his dad used to pastor the church!

        4. @Pastor’s Wife: Gotcha.

          (I still think you should drop the F-bomb in private just for the epic reaction. But I’m an instigator… 😈 )

        5. I think it’s hilarious when my sweet, demure wife goes well beyond ‘crap’ in moments of frustration. She feels embarrassed after but I love her for it.

  47. What about foreign cuss words? Does Bloody mean anything here in the states? No..But in the UK it’s considered cussing….So does God care about our country of origin as well as our intent when we (and I mean all you heathens) cuss?

    1. My friend’s brother was asked to stop saying bloody because “it’s a curse word in Britain & Christians need to be above reproach.”

      So apparently, God expects us to know what is considered cussing in every language & ignore the existence if those words accordingly. 😈

      2. My mom wouldn’t let us say nonsense words like “izzyfrittzleplitz” because we might be swearing in another language.

        1. HAHAHAHAAHAHAAAAA LOL OHHHhh I think maybe your mom and my mom would have been good friends. LOL That is PRICELESS!!!

          My mom used to say that when people spoke in tongues they were maybe cursing God in another language and some old missionary story about someone who spoke the language the tongue speakers were speaking in… don’t remember it now because speaking in tongues wasn’t really much of an issue when I was growing up… but accidentally cussing in another language is definately a new phobia I now have. Thanks, Mom of Pastor’s Wife.

      3. Scheiße! I’ve violated this one too many times to count. 😳

    2. I spent one year at Baptist Bible College in Springfield and was in the drama class there. One of the plays we did was supposed to be in England, and all the actors were peppering their lines with “Bloody” this and “Bloody” that. After several weeks of this, one student pointed out that in some places the word bloody was considered a swear word. After that we only said it outside of class.

      1. @Sims When were you there?? So you know Mrs. J? Were you as afraid of her as I was (then, not now)?

      2. ’75-76. And yes. Terrified. Still. She had a son there also when I was there. I didn’t really like him too much. Thought he was “all that”. Maybe he was. I didn’t think so though.

        Just the other day I went to a play by the Lamb’s Players and the actors went out of character for an instant and had to hide their smiles and I thought of her. And of how much trouble they would have been in if SHE had been their director.

  48. While I was out of the classroom my fundie sub made one of my students write a paragraph on the evils of “cursing”. He had said “gee” and “darn”. I’m sure his non-fundie parents were thrilled. And I was embarrassed for us. 😳
    I find myself saying “son of a mother” and “for the love of Pete” most commonly.

    1. My Christian school principle (Not really a fundy school) once had my friend write out 500 lines of the phrase he used on another kid.

      My friend told the kid to:

      “Go Suck a F&&&in Egg” So my friend, wrote it out like 500 times…Seemed a bit strange to me.

      1. So your friend had to WRITE the words he was not allowed to SAY? ❓ 😯 🙄 500 times? 😕 I’m with you, the lesson learned from this was…?

  49. Growing up, we weren’t allowed to use curse words, but gosh, golly, gee, crap, etc. were just fine. My parents were decidedly less Fundy than a lot of my friends’ parents, so I had to learn to curb my foul language 🙄 at a fairly early age. Also, my family is German, so scheisser, scheiss, scheisster, & scheisskopf could be used when appropriate.

    My spouse’s family was much more strict, using stink & poop when they mean…scheiss. :mrgreen: They were also shocked to hear me use snot & crud. Seriously. 😯

    Currently, I tell my children to speak with integrity, or say what you mean. We don’t use our words as weapons to hurt others, but if you’re expressing frustration, use of an oath can be an appropriate choice. For me personally, son of a biscuit-eating bulldog is a great stress-reliever. I start out angry, but by the time I get to the end, I’m laughing & the tension is eased. But when I’ve been up for 18 hours & my toddler is tearing through the house and pulling things off shelves or pouring the contents of his sippy cup on the floor, a muttered “Dammit!” under the breath is a very appropriate expression of my feelings. 😉 Not only am I venting my frustration, I also get that giddy rush of doing something “bad” & getting away with it. 😆

    1. HAHA about the german swear words!
      My humanities professor used French swear words whenever the overhead projector turned off: which was about twice a class. Still have no idea what he was saying, but now whenever it turns off in my psych class I have to try really hard to not explode in laughter.

    2. The French “merde” is a good one because when you’re really upset you can roll the “r” sound to make a pretty nice growl.

  50. My cuss word of choice is “sugar” and if I’m really over the top frustrated “crap”. I guess there is just some fundy you can’t shed.

    On a more serious note, I really don’t like cursing. I always told my boys they were intelligent enough to come up with something that really expressed what they were thinking and that cursing was just lazy and bad vocabulary. 🙄 They are all men now and I’m sure they curse sometimes, but in front of me they use more creative language.

    1. I agree – as a matter of course I don’t curse. Using such language frequently lessens its impact, so I tend to save foul language for when I really mean it.

      Once my sister, who was going through a rough time in her life, accidentally let the phrase “oh, shit” slip out in front of my Fundy mother. My mom’s response was classic, though. “Dear, don’t worry. Sometimes life is shit.”

      2. Ha! When I was in high school, I rattled to my mom that my brother had called me a bitch. Her response was, “Well, were you acting like one? Can’t really fault him for being truthful.”

        2. Bitch is one of those words that yes, can be misused, but sometimes, the lady was just a bitch! How else can you describe it?

          And Beowulf, that is hilarious.

Comments are closed.