Phrases you use instead of curse words

In My Humble Opinion
1

What phrases do you use when curse words aren’t appropriate? Say you stub your toe in a class full of kindergarteners and muttering “goddammit motherfucker” while hopping on one foot just isn’t a good idea. What’s your euphemism of choice?

When my mother gets angry, she has a tendency to ball up her fists, quiver with rage, and hiss through clenched teeth “God…BLESS AMERICA!” My dad, who spent a number of years in the Navy, made a strong effort to clean up his language after having kids. His curse of choice: “Son of a gun!” I have a great-aunt who won’t say the word swear. Instead, it’s “Well, I swan.”

2

effing

3

Oh, ffffffffffffff…fine.

4

In a call center I once worked at, a manager got a complaint from a caller that she heard someone cuss in the background of a call (while we would never have said such things to our own callers, it wasn’t uncommon to get somewhat expressive while they were on hold). The manager came up with a list of alternative phrases for us to use. I don’t remember most of them, but my favorite was, “Fricassee Pete!”

5

Snack. It’s a good, all-purpose sub for a number of words. Variants include snacking, and snackety-snack.

Mother-pusbucket. Originally said by Bill Murray in Ghostbusters, it’s a good sub for the Queen Mother of all Dirty Words.

-brianjedi

6

What she said. I’ve found it very handy after many years of unbridled air-painting.

7

A coworker of mine has two small children, and she has taken up saying, “What the undie?!” Cracks me up every time.

Me, I say things like frickin’, flippin’, friggin’… and for exclamations, I’ll go with “Doggone it!” and “Shiite Muslim!”

Mostly I forget to restrain myself and just flat-out swear.

8

One I learned from an elderly gentleman is “Son of a Biscuit”. Another one I am fond of is “Ratsen Fatsen son of a Batsen”, which is loosely based on Fred Flintstones swearing style.

9

FOXTROT OSCAR (military slant here folks)

10

I use CHARLIE FOXTROT*.

I also tend to say, Son of a whore!.

And then there’s the ever-versatile sack. “The freeway was sackin’.” “Look, you meat-sack…” “It was totally sacked.”

[sub]* And let’s not forget SNAFU, FUBAR, BOHICA and TARFU.[/sub]

11

My paternal grandmother used to say “Oh, fudge.”

I’m partial to “What in the name of Sam Hill”, or “freaking” when the situation calls for strong language.

12

Bajahumma. “That statement is unmitigated bajahumma.”

Tunket. “This shirt is hideous. The color makes me look like tunket.” Or, “What in the name of tunket do you think you’re doing?”

13

I swear in Korean.

14

Dagnabbit!

15

‘What the Fuzzles?’

And my all-time favorite:

‘Con-sarnit!’

16

I like “Thundering Jehosophat!” instead of “God DAMN it!”

I never use, but always appreciate the spooneristic curses, like “Just for grits and shiggles…” and “I’m in a mell of a hess.”

17

I stick with the unimaginative “Gosh darn it to heck!!”

18

Teehee… Uigi, once, after a very long session of annoying service call(s) (If you’ve ever dealt with certain companies while trying to get broken stuff replaced then you know what I’m talking about… “Hello this is X, oh, I should transfer you to Y”, Y then transfers you to Z, Z to A… all the way back to X… ARGH!)

So I finally got frustrated enough and this conversation ensued…

Customer Service: “Well I’ll see if I can maybe get that part out to you… what’s the serial number again?”

Bobo: “sure, hold on… ok, ready?”

CS: “go ahead”

Bobo:" Foxtrot, Uniform, Charlie, Kilo, Yankee, Oscar, Uniform"

CS:" lemme read that back to you… that’s F, U, C… HEY!"

Bobo: “Just send me the damn harddrive… ok?”

CS: “It’ll be there day after tomorow”

(for those that don’t know, I’m a Sysadmin… and after having almost every serial number botched, I switched to the phonetic alphabet for all that stuff… it normally works out, until I get a clueless user and when I say “Wiskey, Tango, Uniform, 4, Alpha, Bravo, Zulu, is your new password, and you’ll be forced to change it at first login… could you log in alright?”… “Hold on, gimme some time, I haven’t finished typing Tango”… UGH… you can figure out the rest)

19

I’ll usually say dangit or shoot.

I had an uncle who never cussed but if he got really mad at someone he would say “YOU COCKROACH!!!”.

20

My favorites:
Cheese ‘n’ Rice!
Oh Sugar!
That’s Bolshevik!

And once, my friends and I tried to substitute ‘make love’ for the F-word in everyday speech; very difficult, but much hilarity ensued.