Politically correct alternatives to cussing

In My Humble Opinion
1

I once worked in a busy shipping room where the department head would warn new hires about the, erm, unpleasant language used, and would discourage people from working there if they couldn’t deal with it. Then we got a new warehouse manager, who, while being an incompetent asshat, did improve the work environment by bannig the use of swearing. I, being me, and in those days a compulsive list maker, made a list of commonly used swear words and epithets and created politically correct alternatives. I then, with my shipping manager’s blessing (he was very cool) photocopied the list and distributed it to my coworkers. The list is now lost in the mists of time, but I feel moved to at least partially reconstruct it in a public forum, so here goes, with a few additions that occurred to me at later times.

Goddamn- may the deity of your choice consign your soul to the more unpleasant regions of the universe

fuck- have sexual relations with

hell- unpleasant region of the universe

fag/queer/dyke- practitioner of an alternative lifestyle

motherfucker- person with an abnormally relationship with his mother

bitch- female canine

son of a bitch- person of canine ancestry

bastard- person whose parents are of questionable marital status

shit- excrement

asshole- rectal sphincter

We had a lot of fun with these around the warehouse. I’m open to suggestions on possible additions to this list, or of possible creative usage/combinations of the items thereon.

2

And here I thought you were looking for things like:

Oh, Sugar Jets!

God . . . bless America!!

Dagnabbit!

I can’t get this flingin’-flangin’ thing to open! (Thanks, Joey)

And so on. But perhaps I digress . . .

3

I saw a funnier list that substituted innocuous phrases, not synonyms for the objectionable terms.

Like “I’ll take that up in committee” = “No sh!t,” or “I see” = “F*ck you.”

The list got passed around the office among the worker bees. The first time somebody told the head honcho “I see,” in a meeting, most of the room nearly died from choking on their guffaws. Head Honcho wondered why everybody suddenly seemed to have a cold or something.

4

sigh

With the exception of how you might want to refer to your fag/queer/dyke coworkers, none of the above has anything to do with political correctness.

Well, as a person of wrong side of the blanketness, I could take offence at “bastard” :D…but I don’t.

I

5

Errr…premature submission.

I was going to countinue…I don’t take offence about jokes about bastards (or, now, about premature submission…) but I take offence about abuses of language. Could we please stop using “politically correct” till we think we know what it means???

6

Being a teacher means I can’t use certain words at work. My alternatives are: sugarcubes=sht, fudge=fck, and dag=d*mn. If your mouth has started to form the “bad” word, you can easily substitute the other one.

7

“You, sir, are a terminal digestive port.”

“Imagine that”=“You’re dreaming!” =“Fantastic”

“That’s organic fertilizer.”

“I suggest you perform an auto-colonoscopy.”

8

I once tried to substitute “Jesse Helms!” for “Jesus Christ!” and “Dan Pat Moynihan” for “Goddammit!”

It didn’t take.

9

I subsitute Jebus for Jesus.

Otherwise I just brandish a glare and a knife so sharp it can go to Harvard on scholarship.