Author Topic: Swear Word Alternatives (Read 1488 times)

Nikola · « **on:** May 31, 2019, 11:23:23 am »

This is a topic most of us can probably comment on: Do you have any creative swear word alternatives in your language?

In Czech, we have a phrase Jdi do prdele. It means Go to... and the word for the rear part of the body. It's similar to "Go to hell" in English. Its shorter version do prdele is more of an exclamation, not so much "to hell with that", more like a much stronger "crap" when something goes wrong. Prdel is a considerably bad word so there are numerous alternatives, for example: Jdi do háje. "Háj" is an old-fashioned word for forest. So you're telling people to go to the forest. When something goes wrong, you can exclaim "do háje!" - to the forest!

Other alternatives are jdi někam meaning "go somewhere". As for do prdele, there's do pytle (into the bag/sack), do prkna (into the wooden board/plank) or doprčic/do Prčic (Prčice is a name of a village, conveniently starting with pr- just like prkno and prdel).

Fellow Slavs and people who have spent some time around them will know the word kurva. In Czech, you would use it when something goes wrong, similarly to do prdele. It means "prostitute". There's kurník (henhouse), kurňa (regional word for henhouse again but no one really knows what it means anymore, it's just "the word you use when you don't want to say kurva").

German speakers will be familiar with hergot (Herr Gott), which is not a swear word but considered offensive to believers so there are several, often nonsense alternatives such as hernajs, herdek or heršvec (švec = shoemaker).

Two English alternatives that jump to mind are sugar! and fudge!

Looking forward to hearing more.

SHL · « **Reply #1 on:** May 31, 2019, 02:27:16 pm »

Quote from: Nikola on May 31, 2019, 11:23:23 am

This is a topic most of us can probably comment on: Do you have any creative swear word alternatives in your language?

In Czech, we have a phrase Jdi do prdele. It means Go to... and the word for the rear part of the body. It's similar to "Go to hell" in English. Its shorter version do prdele is more of an exclamation, not so much "to hell with that", more like a much stronger "crap" when something goes wrong. Prdel is a considerably bad word so there are numerous alternatives, for example: Jdi do háje. "Háj" is an old-fashioned word for forest. So you're telling people to go to the forest. When something goes wrong, you can exclaim "do háje!" - to the forest!

Other alternatives are jdi někam meaning "go somewhere". As for do prdele, there's do pytle (into the bag/sack), do prkna (into the wooden board/plank) or doprčic/do Prčic (Prčice is a name of a village, conveniently starting with pr- just like prkno and prdel).

Fellow Slavs and people who have spent some time around them will know the word kurva. In Czech, you would use it when something goes wrong, similarly to do prdele. It means "prostitute". There's kurník (henhouse), kurňa (regional word for henhouse again but no one really knows what it means anymore, it's just "the word you use when you don't want to say kurva").

German speakers will be familiar with hergot (Herr Gott), which is not a swear word but considered offensive to believers so there are several, often nonsense alternatives such as hernajs, herdek or heršvec (švec = shoemaker).

Two English alternatives that jump to mind are sugar! and fudge!

Looking forward to hearing more.

Nikola,

Sugar and fudge as swear words? Sugar I have never heard used as a substitute swear word, and fudge is really really archaic, like 1900s era, maybe. Never today. I’ve heard that one said as a substitute to a swear word maybe twice in my entire life and thought it sounded weird then. It’s way toooo euphemistic-sounding. It just doesn’t work and sounds just strange to me. Are you sure about those? Instead of God damn you might hear „goodness“ or „for goodness sakes“ or heck instead of hell. Not too many others come to mind. I‘d not ever say „fudge“. It‘s really out of date and corny-sounding.

Nikola · « **Reply #2 on:** May 31, 2019, 02:53:42 pm »

Quote from: SHL on May 31, 2019, 02:27:16 pm

Nikola,

Sugar and fudge as swear words? Sugar I have never heard used as a substitute swear word, and fudge is really really archaic, like 1900s era, maybe. Never today. I’ve heard that one said as a substitute to a swear word maybe twice in my entire life and thought it sounded weird then. It’s way toooo euphemistic-sounding. It just doesn’t work and sounds just strange to me. Are you sure about those? Instead of God damn you might hear „goodness“ or „for goodness sakes“ or heck instead of hell. Not too many others come to mind. I‘d not ever say „fudge“. It‘s really out of date and corny-sounding.

Believe it or not, sugar and fudge are used in the UK.

MartinSR · « **Reply #3 on:** May 31, 2019, 03:34:48 pm »

In Polish when we want to withdraw from saying "kurwa", we say "kurka wodna" (water bird similar to a hen) or "kurza twarz" (the face of a hen), sometimes similar things or switch to nonexisting words like e.g. "kuśwa" or "kuwa".
Polish 'go to hell' is "Idź do diabła" (go to the devil) or oldfashioned "do diaska" (the same meaning but the devil not so serious one - rather a kind of an evil dwarf). Sometimes substituted with even more rude "spadaj" (fall off?) Or "spływaj" (**** off?) or similar. When you want suggest someone to go away, you may always say "Sprawdź czy Cię nie ma w..." (Look if you're not in...).
When you are completely not interested in something and an annoying person keeps on talking about it to you. Or when you don't mind some rules or regulations - the rude answer is "Mam to w dupie" (I have it in my ass) what you can easily switch to nice though somewhat enigmatic expression "Mam to w GŁĘBOKIM poważaniu" (I have it in the DEEP respect).

MartinSR · « **Reply #4 on:** May 31, 2019, 03:39:01 pm »

On the other hand in Polish "Idź do pierdla" is an expression (a rude one) meaning 'Go to jail'.

Alharacas · « **Reply #5 on:** May 31, 2019, 04:34:34 pm »

In Polish, there's also "kurcze pieczone", grilled chicken, which I find simply enchanting as a swear word. Plus, it's a sure way to make people laugh when I say it.

In German, there's a sanitized version of almost every swearword I can think of:
Scheiße (****) -> Scheibenkleister ((window) pane glue) (Yeah, that makes about as much sense in German as in English.) or "Mist!" (dung)
Arschloch (****) -> Armleuchter (candelabra, candlestick)
verflucht (cursed) -> verflixt (like: cussed), with the extension of "Verflixt und zugenäht!", sort of like "cussed and sewn up"

The potentially offensive exclamation "(Du/Mein) Lieber Gott!" is mostly used to express awe, surprise or horror and can change to "(Du) Liebe Zeit!" (dear time), "(Du) Liebe Güte!" or "Meine Güte!" (dear/my goodness) or "(Du) Liebes Lieschen!" (dear Lizzie).

Bavarians are very much into religious curses which get changed or shortened out of all recognition: "Herrgott!" -> "Herrschaftsseiten!", "Kruzifix" -> "Zefix!"or "Zefixalleluja!", "Sakrament!" -> "Sakra!", "Jesus, Maria und Joseph" -> "Jessasmarandjosef!"
Interestingly, "Kruzitürken!" has nothing to do with modern day Turkish immigrants, and in fact, most people are very much surprised when told that Turkish people find that curse offensive. It's a leftover from the times of the Crusades and has lost all meaning - to Germans, that is. To us, it's just a generic swear word.

Nikola · « **Reply #6 on:** May 31, 2019, 05:22:20 pm »

Thank you everyone so far, I'm having a good laugh here. The face of a hen! Windowpane glue! Crazy stuff.

@Martin
"Mam to w dupie" is probably the equivalent in meaning to our "je mi to u prdele" (it is next to my ass/down by my ass = that's how little I care).
And you're using our "prdel" to refer to jail? "Idź do pierdla"? We use the German Loch (hole) for jail but it's not rude, just colloquial. I wonder what Germans use? A French word?

@Alharacas
Thanks to you I remembered some Czech ones that we stole from you

"Krucifix!" - "Sakra!"- "Sakramentský... !" (adjective) - "Ježíšmarja!" - "Šmarjajozef!"
And the best one comes from Trautenberk, a character from an old kids' series. They never admitted he was German, they just hinted. He curses "Himmel-Herrgott-Donner-Wetter-Kruncajs-Element!"

Alharacas · « **Reply #7 on:** May 31, 2019, 06:18:06 pm »

Quote from: Nikola on May 31, 2019, 05:22:20 pm

And you're using our "prdel" to refer to jail? "Idź do pierdla"? We use the German Loch (hole) for jail but it's not rude, just colloquial. I wonder what Germans use? A French word?

The most commonly used informal word for Gefängnis (prison) is Knast. There's also an exact equivalent to "behind bars": hinter Gittern. The expression schwedische Gardinen (Swedish curtains) isn't much used anymore, it's from 1906, apparently, and refers to the high quality of Swedish iron products (I'd had no idea!).
The colloquial verb for sending someone to prison is verknacken, that's why (Ex-)Knacki means "jailbird".

Quote from: Nikola on May 31, 2019, 05:22:20 pm

And the best one comes from Trautenberk, a character from an old kids' series. They never admitted he was German, they just hinted. He curses "Himmel-Herrgott-Donner-Wetter-Kruncajs-Element!"

Ah! Oh yes, there's "Himmel, Arsch und Zwirn!" (heavens, ass and yarn) or "Himmel, Arsch und Wolkenbruch!" (... and, er, sudden rain) if you're feeling particularly vexed.

"Donnerwetter!" (literally: thunder-weather), "Donnerkeil!" (literally: thunder-wedge*) and "Donnerlittchen!" are all used to show you're impressed.
*wiktionary gives "thunderbolt" as the English meaning, which is a bit misleading since we only say Donner when we're talking about a storm.

A relatively new expression (ca. 2000) for astonishment I quite like is Holla die Waldfee (... the wood fairy), also used ironically.

Nikola · « **Reply #8 on:** May 31, 2019, 07:02:26 pm »

Quote from: Alharacas on May 31, 2019, 06:18:06 pm

The colloquial verb for sending someone to prison is verknacken, that's why (Ex-)Knacki means "jailbird".

So is Knäckebrot "prison bread"? It would be quite fitting.

Alharacas · « **Reply #9 on:** May 31, 2019, 07:57:02 pm »

Quote from: Nikola on May 31, 2019, 07:02:26 pm

Quote from: Alharacas on May 31, 2019, 06:18:06 pm
The colloquial verb for sending someone to prison is verknacken, that's why (Ex-)Knacki means "jailbird".
So is Knäckebrot "prison bread"? It would be quite fitting.

Er... no. "knäcka" is Swedish for "to crack" (I think).
Since there is no vowel change in (ver)knacken, those two words don't even look similar to us. (Just like no Spanish speaker will understand how anyone could ever confuse "velo" and "vela" or "pollo" and "polla" - they're just totally different words to them.)

MartinSR · « **Reply #10 on:** May 31, 2019, 09:05:07 pm »

Polish light swearing is also "kurde" - means nothing, at least shouldn't be offending to Kurdish people if any around. Of course "kurczę pieczone" (obviously pronounced with "e" instead of "ę") is great, but you can sometimes hear "kurczę blade" (pale chicken).
"Krucyfiks" exists in Polish, but not as a swear word. But in some dialects (like in Silesian) it may be - "krucafuks".
The jail reminds me that when my wife asked our neighbour's son where his older brother was recently - he answered "w sanatorium" (everybody knew he was arrested).

Another related question is - do people in your countries use swear words from other languages than their own?
In Poland we may often hear: "f..k", "Scheiße", or Russian version of 'Go away!' - "Пошёл вон!" (Polish spelling: "Paszoł won!").

SHL · « **Reply #11 on:** May 31, 2019, 10:32:58 pm »

Quote from: Nikola on May 31, 2019, 02:53:42 pm

Quote from: SHL on May 31, 2019, 02:27:16 pm
Nikola,

Sugar and fudge as swear words? Sugar I have never heard used as a substitute swear word, and fudge is really really archaic, like 1900s era, maybe. Never today. I’ve heard that one said as a substitute to a swear word maybe twice in my entire life and thought it sounded weird then. It’s way toooo euphemistic-sounding. It just doesn’t work and sounds just strange to me. Are you sure about those? Instead of God damn you might hear „goodness“ or „for goodness sakes“ or heck instead of hell. Not too many others come to mind. I‘d not ever say „fudge“. It‘s really out of date and corny-sounding.
Believe it or not, sugar and fudge are used in the UK.

Oh, I don‘t doubt the UK use of any slang or euphemisms, because they can be quite different. I‘m not sure what sugar would mean, except if it referred to that old use of the word (which would be considered insulting now and hence never used) pertaining to a woman, like „Sugar, can you do me a favor?“ Or „sugarpie“ (very Southern-sounding and old) as long as it was one woman talking to another. If a man, especially in the context of a work environment, said that too a woman today it would really be considered misogynistic and rude. Not to mention, really old-fashioned. It would probably be considered sexual harassment at the workplace. They used to refer to a female office worker as the employer‘s „girl“, but that is right out of the 1950s and earlier. The woman‘s movement stopped that practice pretty fast.

Nikola · « **Reply #12 on:** May 31, 2019, 10:55:56 pm »

Quote from: Alharacas on May 31, 2019, 07:57:02 pm

Quote from: Nikola on May 31, 2019, 07:02:26 pm
Quote from: Alharacas on May 31, 2019, 06:18:06 pm
The colloquial verb for sending someone to prison is verknacken, that's why (Ex-)Knacki means "jailbird".
So is Knäckebrot "prison bread"? It would be quite fitting.

Er... no. "knäcka" is Swedish for "to crack" (I think).
Since there is no vowel change in (ver)knacken, those two words don't even look similar to us. (Just like no Spanish speaker will understand how anyone could ever confuse "velo" and "vela" or "pollo" and "polla" - they're just totally different words to them.)

See I didn't suspect Swedish because I'm learning it and bread is bröd. But now I looked it up and it's partial calque of Swedish knäckebröd, half of the word was changed to "brot". That's why I assumed it was German so thought there must have been a vowel change from knack.

Nikola · « **Reply #13 on:** May 31, 2019, 11:10:21 pm »

@Martin
Yes, I've heard both f*ck (usually f*ck off) and Scheiße here. I met a Nigerian in London who was using Scheiße quite consistently. I thought that was funny. Czech people also use sh*t but it sometimes refers to "a product of poor quality".

@Steve
They say "sugar" where they would say "sh*t" because they both start with the "sh" sound. Imagine you drop something. You automatically say "sh-" and then change your mind and add "-ugar" instead of "-it".

SHL · « **Reply #14 on:** June 01, 2019, 05:25:31 am »

Quote from: Nikola on May 31, 2019, 11:10:21 pm

@Martin
Yes, I've heard both f*ck (usually f*ck off) and Scheiße here. I met a Nigerian in London who was using Scheiße quite consistently. I thought that was funny. Czech people also use sh*t but it sometimes refers to "a product of poor quality".

@Steve
They say "sugar" where they would say "sh*t" because they both start with the "sh" sound. Imagine you drop something. You automatically say "sh-" and then change your mind and add "-ugar" instead of "-it".

@Nikola
Yeah, I found your sugar reference to Scheiße, in Dict.CC and it flags it as a British. Throw that one around Americans and they wouldn’t have a clue what you were talking about.

@Alharacas

With Gefängnis yes, now that I think about it I think I‘ve heard Knast more, but I‘ve heard the more formal, die Justizvollzugsanstalt a lot too, at least in more formal settings or writings. Hinter Gittern reminds me of one of my favorite German YouTube series, „Hinter fremden Gittern“ about all these German guys who think they can make a quick buck by flying down to Central and South America and think they can smuggle drugs back to Germany or somewhere in the EU. They always get caught and they all end up „hinter fremden Gittern“, behind foreign bars I suppose you‘d say. And boy, you‘d sure never want to be in a Peruvian prison. Wow.

One of my favorite words is Armleuchter, because it just reminds me of someone with a low intensity light bulb in their head. I heard it dubbed over on a Netflix series I like, to mean „knucklehead“ in English, but Duden says it indeed has that veiled Arschloch connotation to it to, as a alternate meaning.

But Scheiße is so commonly heard, it‘s like one of the first words anyone is going to learn in German. Mist seems like a toned down version of it. My friend, Uli, loves to say „Scheiße bauen“ a lot about decisions she doesn’t like that a Judge made. „Er hat Scheiße gebaut!“ I‘ve heard that one quite a lot from her! You can also say, as you know, „Er hat Mist gebaut“ but I‘ve not heard it nearly as much. Maybe it‘s a bit less extreme or something?

Kruzitürken is an interesting one, but none of the dictionaries have anything other than „gadzooks“ in English, which is marked as dated (which it is), so I don‘t know an updated word for it in English.

NealC · « **Reply #15 on:** June 01, 2019, 06:01:07 am »

"Gadzooks" and "bashi bazooks" are rather archaic, especially in American English but they both refer to Turkish irregular troops that followed at the edges of the Sultan's armies. The Bashi Bazooks were the scourings of slums, prisons, insane asylums etc... and were with the army for plunder.

The whole chapter in English of frightening children with the Fall of Constantinople, the wars in the Balkans, and the bloodthirsty hordes of the Ottomans is but a memory now in English. Tolkien's Orcs being part of the last memories. The last few related words are like finding dusty archeological relics.

Sugar and Fudge are both known in the US, there are a whole class of words you use to take the place of a swear word because they sound like the four letter swear word you were about to say. Especially if you are around children. So the idea of an adult accidentally hurting themselves and screaming "SSsssshhhhhhhh...", and then spotting a child close by and changing the exclamation to "Shhhhhhhhhh..... sugar!" is pretty well known.

SHL · « **Reply #16 on:** June 01, 2019, 08:59:08 am »

The idea of a child turning the word sh*t into the word sugar is completely unknown to me. Maybe back East it‘s done, but I have never heard of it or seen it in my entire life out here.

NealC · « **Reply #17 on:** June 01, 2019, 11:52:47 am »

Steve, the adult spots the child and changes the swear word "Sh*t!" to "Sugar!".

We live in a far more vulgar society today but adults censoring themselves because kids were around was a big part of my childhood. There were plenty of times a man would be talking to my dad and would casually curse about something, stop short, look at me, and say "Sorry Sal" (my dad's name). The idea was you didn't want to send another man's kid home to say "Mom, dad was talking to Mr Smith today, what does f-ck mean?" Or even worse, say the word itself. "Ma these French fries are pretty f-cking good!"

Whenever a kid would say a bad word in front of an (especially female) adult, the question always was "Who taught you to use that word?", like they were going to hunt down the adult responsible and give them Hell. We used to think it was funny, adults used the language all over the place, we knew what they meant when they said "sugar!" or "fudge!", but we would have to hand over some particular adult as the guilty party in our corruption. If it was someone the mother did not see or really know, like one of your father's morally questionable friends or relatives then your father would catch Hell for it ("Jeanne, I can't control Charlie, he was a Marine in the war"). This wasn't just my family, this was true all over the neighborhood.

An important rite of passage was when an adult would casually swear, look at me, and say to my dad "Ah he is a big boy now, isn't he?". That meant I was old enough not to swear in front of a female adult and thus give up my membership in the club of being a young man. Then the word changed from "Shhhhhhhhh.... Sugar! .... aww hell -SH*T!!!"

SHL · « **Reply #18 on:** June 01, 2019, 03:25:18 pm »

Neal, there has definitely been a cultural shift with the internet (actually we all learned „f*ck, sh*t, etc“ in elementary school, but we weren’t to repeat the words around adults, especially family). But in the 60s-80s we had censored TV where those words were bleeped out. Now online, anything goes.

I think it is just a regional/local thing no one pays any attention to. Back East or perhaps elsewhere sh*t might have been something kids would euphemise to sugar, but I‘ve seriously never heard that even once on the West Coast in my entire life, all 61 years of it. Never saw it on TV or anywhere. I’m sure if I asked my sisters (both older and younger) if they had ever heard of it, they would say „ah, no.“ I‘m sure there are regional differences no one pays any attention to, but I would not agree this is common in the US. The online German-English dictionaries I consulted all flagged the „sh*t to sugar“ thing as British usage. That’s why when Nikola said it it sounded so foreign to me. Never heard it in my life.

The only thing I heard once in the 60s, as an elementary school kid, was another kid say „son-of-a-.....then catch himself and say „biscuit eater“ rather than the usual „b*tch“, but that’s the only thing. And I though that sounded really corny anyway and silly, and never said it myself.

The problem is, nowadays a lot has changed and young parents use these words all the time around their kids of all ages, and think nothing of it. So, the kids start saying it like it‘s nothing and the parents don‘t care.

Truman Overby · « **Reply #19 on:** June 01, 2019, 05:48:27 pm »

Glad to see you didn't sugar coat your answer, Steve.

SHL · « **Reply #20 on:** June 01, 2019, 07:38:30 pm »

Quote from: Beech 18 on June 01, 2019, 05:48:27 pm

Glad to see you didn't sugar coat your answer, Steve.

Oh, a new name Jerry. Ok.

I will say I have noticed a trend away from avoiding the „4-letter words“, or whatever one wishes to say (except „b*tch“ has 5 letters) and just using the words in ordinary conversation, or even on internet broadcasts (and I’m not talking about stand-up comics). I guess I‘m just old-fashioned, but not having grown up with the free and frequent use of them, they are slightly off-putting for me to hear. Just turn on any YouTube podcast nowadays, even the ones supposedly trying to sound intelligent or hosted by supposedly educated people (normally young people under 35) and they freely say „f*ck this“ or „f*ck that“ and they just toss it in as part of a usual „news-report“ of theirs or monologue like it‘s nothing. That would have been unheard of in my day. I recall hearing the Young Turks (TYT), whom I‘m not terribly fond of, just freely toss around the F-word like it were nothing on all their YouTube broadcasts when I heard them about 7 years ago, and I really found it to be annoying. I just thought it made them sound uneducated and stupid.

I recall one of those TYT idiots get on the broadcast one day in 2013, after the George Zimmerman acquittal and say, „Well it‘s now f*cking legal throughout the entire US to f*cking murder someone.“ I frankly was shocked. Not just because of the unrestrained use of „f*cking“ in the commentary, but the absolutely absurd and untrue remark about murder now being made legal, just because ONE jury in ONE Florida case acquitted ONE person of a murder charge? What? Gee, I don’t recall anyone even suggesting OJ’s acquittal made murder legal back in the 90s. Who would have been so stupid as to say something like that? The whole concept is preposterous.

And this was coming from someone, about age 32, who thought he was intelligent, and had a college degree. One of the most absurd comments I‘ve heard in my life. And to think someone can get on YouTube and be paid to say this uneducated garbage is appalling.

But, nowadays go on just about any (non-intellectual) podcast on YouTube and everything is „Yeah, you know that f*cking guy from Arkansas, and what he f*cking voted for?“ And this is just the way these American internet guys speak who think they are reporting the news. They have to throw in f*ck in every sentence.

Again, maybe I am old-fashioned, but for me and guys of my generation, we tend to avoid those words just because of the era we were raised in I suppose. The under 38 crowd who grew up on the internet and without any parental concerns about language or oversight have normalized these words to make them everyday speech. My mom used to say people who use those words only do so because they don‘t know any better ones to say.

NealC · « **Reply #21 on:** June 02, 2019, 12:48:19 am »

Steve, you're killing me. I have explained this a couple of times now. It was not KIDS changing sh*t for sugar, it was the ADULT making the change so he would not curse in front of the kids.

Anyway, you might enjoy this clip from the Young Turks 2016 election night, as they go from smug in a Clinton victory to emotional meltdown to various members seeking solace in opioids and alcohol.
Love it!

SHL · « **Reply #22 on:** June 02, 2019, 02:12:53 am »

Oh, Neal, this is a better one, this parody of TYT. „When you use the F-word you know it‘s REAL talk!“

How these people even got a YouTube channel is beyond me. I can‘t stand Ana Kasparian. She is such an LA Valley Girl, sort of empty-headed type, who thinks she’s smart because she got a Masters Degree in Journalism or something similar from California State University, Northridge (that venerable institution of higher learning, like Cal. State LA-what a joke).

What amazes me is Cenk Uygur actually is a Columbia Law School graduate and worked in large law firms in New York City and Washington, DC before embarking on his journalism career.

I thought because of his background in law, he’d correct his staff on their obvious legal errors made in reporting stories, but he doesn’t (like the commentary about the Zimmerman case and the acquittal meaning „murder is now legal in the US.“ But he seems either clueless or indifferent to it

And I would have thought coming out of a prestigious law school like Columbia, that he would have had reasonably good debating skills but he doesn’t. They are really awful.

Whatever euphemisms that used to be used in our era by parents or other adults, are all dead now with the advent of the internet and YouTube. Kids learn that this is just how you talk. Like the clip says, so clearly „when you use the F-word you know it‘s REAL talk!“ LOL.

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Author Topic: Swear Word Alternatives (Read 1488 times)

Truman Overby