When I counseled this summer at a camp I had to get creative. Always wanting damn it to roll off my tongue I eventually turned that into danish. From there it evolved into the most amazing swear word substitute ever; cinnamon danish. I now mutter that under my breath more than any thing else.
The comic strip Out of the Gene Pool suggested “garf” as a swear word in today’s installment.
My swear word is “panda.” I don’t know why, but I’ve trained myself to say “panda” when I’m angry. Although a couple of days ago I shouted “d’oh!” at the top of my lungs when I messed up at work. The OED defines “d’oh” as expressing realization that the thing you have done is foolish, which explains how Homer Simpson uses it and how I used it.
Larry Niven’s “Gil Hamilton” stories (Gil’s a 22nd century police detective) feature a rather amusing quasi-euphemistic expletive: “Bleep!”. As in “What the bleeping hell did you think you were doing?” It is, of course, derived from the bleep that TV censors used to mask over an impermissible language choice, turned into profanity itself.
“Earmuffs” is from a movie. It’s some crappy Vince Vaughn movie but I can’t remember which one. I know that doesn’t narrow it down much because all Vince Vaughn movies are crappy. Was it Old School?
when I was a camper, we did the same sort of thing. summer between seventh and eighth grade, I think. And most of the kids were a bit older.
When we would swear, we’d be admonished- “that’s not camp appropriate.” Of course, since our counselors were mostly college-age or so, they weren’t too hardass. They still wouldn’t let us swear, but they’d joke about it. So we all made up replacement words “cupcake you!” “no, cupcake you!” or just say “NCA” in place of things. (NCA=not camp appropriate)
and of course we’d end up stepping on a rock and being all, “shi… cra… jesu… GOSH DARN IT! GOLLY GEE WHIZ! HOLY MOTHER OF CHEESE BALLS!”