As has been pointed out upthread, a lot of what makes Southern swearing is not what you say, but how you say it. In much the same way that Paula Deen manages to make oil and egg into three-syllable words, a true Southerner can make god damn last a good five seconds.
Things that are untrue, or just not very good, are “some bullshit,” which comes out sounding like “Them pancakes was some BOOL-sheeeeeeyiiiit!”
In much the same way that you never come across sodium in its elemental state in nature, you rarely see the f-word by itself in the South. It’s usually compounded into motherfucker or motherfuckin’. And in my observation, Southerners don’t spray that one around quite as liberally as people from other parts of the country.
Until now I didn’t think there was a thread that could make the south seem more stoopid and uncouth. I’ve lived in Texas all of my life and I have yet to pick up any southern accent. It was a conscious effort on my part not to sound like my dad, an Italian guy that grew up in NYC, or like my mom, a country girl from Kentucky. I guess what I’m trying to say is, I DO NOT say bull-sheeeyit.
That certainly isn’t the intention here. Southern profanity is unique, not necessarily more stupid or uncouth (though, if we’re talking about intentionally crude language, wouldn’t more uncouth actually be better?).
Actually, I grew up in Maryland myself, and to me there is no more grating sound than a woman from New Jersey cursing out her significant other in public. It sounds like the aluminum being stripped off the outside of a rusty trailer with pliers. In comparison to that, Deep South invective goes down just like syrup over waffles.
I quite often substitute "horse pucky’ or “horse sheeeiiiiitttt” for “bull shit.” “Fuckin’ Hell” gets a lot of use, too, as does “Holy fuckin’ God.” “Bull Fuckin’ Sheeeiiit” gets a lot of use when I think someone’s statement or story is absolutely whacked.
I once worked with a guy whose absolutely favorite indictment of a person, place, or thing was “God Damn Mother Fuckin’ Baby Rapin’ Jug Fuckin’ Banjo Eyed Son-of-a-Bitch.” He was big enough and mean enough to get away with it. He was also a good ol’ boy from rural Oregon.
I always thought the genteel Southern curses (not the glistening invective I’ve heard, but ‘that’s nice’ and ‘sweet’ and ‘cute’ and the kiss of death, ‘bless your little heart’ were not serious. But not only did I learn otherwise, I learned just how astonishingly harsh they can really be.
I’m a major devotee of the F word and other “standard” cursing fare as are most of my southern/country born&reared friends, though my sister has a definite Southern streak in her cursing. Her favorite oath, said very fast (remember that there are several distinct southern accents and they are not all slow), is “SHIT GODDAMN MONKEY-PISS N*GGER HELL’S BELLS MOTHERFUCKER!” (As for the racial slur, before assuming she’s a racist, remember she contains it with her most extreme curse phrases including GD, which she believes is not just a dirty phrase but a sin.)
My grandmother, raised in the early 20th century by a well-to-do socially prominent family where ladies didn’t curse, used to preface her invective with words to the effect of “As a sinner with lower breeding and a fouler mouth than I have once said, Fuck that bunch of bullshit”. (In other words, she’d give that preface and then turn the air blue with drunk sailor language.)
Also: in my middle class southern family, you did not swear in public- it was the nadir of manners. OTOH, at home, one word was as good as another in conversation- cursing was as casual as Kathy Griffin says it is to her Catholic family.
“Fuck” is the be all and end all unforgivable word around my family–as in, “I’m 35 years old and if I said that word in front of my Mommy, I’d still expect her to slap the livin’ shit outta me.”
“Shit” is acceptable from adults under extreme provocation. It is hissed, yet violently, loudly, and disdainfully all at once.
For the Christians (who, in that area, are legion) all variations on “goddamn” are strictly frowned upon. I’ve encountered this in people of all ages.
Restrictions are looser depending on the crowd. Cursing in “mixed company” is frowned upon–mixed company meaning either mixed ages or genders or other groups. You do *not * curse in front of an old lady unless you want to be whacked. Teenagers, in my experience, have no shame or limitations among themselves. I guess the differences would mostly be with regional accents.
As for unique turns of phrases, my dad has one that I often remember with joy and nostalgia: “Shit fire and save matches,” pronounced in a crescendo: “Wull sheeit FAHR and save matches!” It was often said after burning himself with a soldering iron. If I think of more unique variations, I’ll post them.
At the conservative Christian school I went to we weren’t allowed to say “Jesus Christ” as an oath, which made sense/fair enough, but they also banned “Jiminy Cricket”, “Sheez”, “Cheese Grits”[?], and “anything with the initials JC” a all were evidently clear synonyms for Jesus Christ.
Since my first two names are Jonathan Carroll, I became the swear word for a while because they could then swear “we were just calling Jon!”
