DE: Exclamation!!!

[cook_the_rude]

 What kind of exclamations, cuss-words, religiously or sexually charged colloquialisms etc. does your character use -- especially those driven by canon -- see icon keyword. Explain why.

Comments

[last_kallig]

The Star Wars universe has its own galaxy of swears and expressions that are different than ours. This handy link is a useful reference.

I do have to double check myself sometimes when writing to keep the exclamations and swears I'm used to from slipping in!

[camwyn]

*looks at Shephard*

ALL OF THEM.

ETA: Okay, lemme be more precise. Shephard has always had a foul mouth. As a kid he thought it was funny how grownups reacted when he said some words. He had a lot of uncles who thought it was fuckin' hilarious, so to speak, to hear a six-year-old swear like a truck driver. He picked up the standard American set of curse words from the late 1970s and early 1980s, along with an aversion to using them where his mother could hear (she didn't wash his mouth out with soap, she just made him come work with her on her beehives). For various reasons he never really bothered using the word 'bitch', except as part of 'son of a'. Mind you, even that didn't get used often because mixing and matching curse words came across as a lot more interesting.

Then he graduated high school and joined the Marines, and he picked up so many extra curse words in English, along with new and exciting turns of vulgar phrase. He also started coming in contact with foreign languages much more often, and developed his policy of breaking the ice with speakers of other languages by asking them what the worst thing someone could call another person in their language was. He's kept that up since the Combine War, and as a result has acquired bad, bad words in something like fifteen or sixteen human languages and at least two off-world languages spoken primarily by nonhumans, including the Na'vi of Pandora.

The angrier he gets the more likely he is to mingle non-English curse words in with his English ones. His favored non-English alternative is Dutch, as that mostly involves calling people horrible diseases, but he is also fond of using Quebecois swearing, which is mostly religious-based. He knows that Russian speakers have curse words, bad curse words, and mat, which is considered almost unspeakably vile because it is primarily religious in nature, but he doesn't have very much in the way of Russian bad vocabulary. And the only thing he can say in Norwegian is Din mor suger pikk i helvete, which, if the Internet search engines I have consulted are to be trusted, is a translation of a fairly famous line from The Exorcist.

[sdelmonte]

Since my tastes run towards PG-rated things, my pups in general don't curse any more than I do. Kirk especially lacks that sort of vocabulary, since we know that "colorful metaphors" are a thing of the past, and Trek never created a fake set of curses in any language to the best of my knowledge. (Kirk does, however, know "bastard" as a pretty strong word.) And while I am sure that my contemporary pups know all the standards cusses, it just never seems suited to them.

[athelstanthescribe]

But Klingon would be such an awesome language to swear in. I bet somebody has invented some, even if the original showrunners didn't.

[bjornwilde]

Not associated with this DE, but there's a new teaser for SW Rebels season 03 and Hondo has shown up again.

[bcgphoenix]

Aside from the usual constellation of curse words, Alistair has no problem taking either the Maker or Andraste's name in vain, which is roughly equivalent to a Christian taking God or Jesus's name in vain. While he can perform a precision F-bomb strike with the best of them when the situation requires, he usually doesn't get more intense than "damn" or "shit."

Curtis, uh, might have inherited his curse-like-a-sailor tendencies from yours truly. >.> So yeah, he makes liberal use of the typical Earth grab-bag of swear words, including "fuck" as noun, verb, and adjective -- occasionally all in the same sentence.

And Gaeta, of course, has the censor-dodging "frak" in his arsenal. He actually doesn't curse a whole lot -- overall, he's a polite guy -- but, well. He's also a career soldier. (It's also established millicanon that he thinks "fuck" sounds like somebody saying "oh, fudge" around a child.)

[feminine_menace]

It is my fervent hope that somewhere in Thedas is a person who uses the expression "Andraste's holy knickers!"

[igetthatalot]

You rang?

[feminine_menace]

I don't remember Varric ever using it but now that I know he has it's made my day. :D

[feminine_menace]

YT uses pretty much all of the above that you can find in American culture - frequently and with enthusiasm. She's a teenager and a thrasher - it would be weird (even kind of troubling) if she didn't.

Abe no Seimei almost never uses profane language because he prides himself on being refined. He does use the occasional double entendre (there are a lot of expressions in both Heian and contemporary Japanese that serve for this purpose). His religiously charged exclamation of choice is "merciful Kannon!"

[bjornwilde]

Star Wars rebels has brought "karabast" to the Star Wars list of exclamations. It seems a pretty versatile word and is used by the Ghost crew, though I'm not sure if Sabine ever uses it. I am still trying to decide why Sabine doesn't use any Mando'a, curses or otherwise..

Is it just an oversight by the writers or something character driven?

[ceitfianna]

The two of mine who swear outside of the norm are Sameth and Quentin.

Sameth uses Charter in place of something like oh god and its his fall back curse. Canon has always been weird on religion and so that removes some swear options but I feel like Nick does use oh god at some points.

Quentin's canon is full of amazing swears built around the various holy people and things of the Fae world. Major curses involve the big three from whom all Fae are descended-Oberon, Maeve and Titania. The common ones are Oberon's beard but one of my favorites is from Toby, Maeve's tits. The Firstborn will actually curse by them, the Luidaeg goes, 'oh for Dad's sake'. Cursing by the sacred trees is the other common variation-Oak and Ash, Root and Branch. Quentin tends to use the basic ones but he's enjoyed picking up new and dirtier ones from Toby.

William should actually curse a lot more and I once saw a great write up of curses from the 1860s/70s but forgot to bookmark it. I think he watches his cursing around his mother and brother but they tend to be varieties of damn and taking god's name in vain. I can also see him testing out curses that he's read in books.

Will's cursing is basically all to do with god or various saints along with more modern ones he's picked up in Milliways.

Charles doesn't curse that much, but when he does they tend to be more British than American curses. There's a part of him that always sees them as being more sophisticated and interesting.

Jane has learned curses from her brothers and their friends but doesn't use them as often as she'd like. She does love language but as a young lady of her era, her language is watched a great deal.

Demeter tends to curse by the Fates as its usually their fault somehow.

Ivan's curses aren't written out in the books but I imagine with the variety of languages on Barrayar-Russian, French and Greek and the fact he's a soldier, he knows some impressive ones.

Moist tends to curse in Uberwaldian, they sound angrier but he knows them in most languages of the Disc, great way to get someone's confidence, curse in a way they recognize.

Tumnus rarely swears but if he does its a variation on 'by the lion's mane' or something similar.

[sunbaked_baker]

Sunshine's canon is full of colorful and religiously-charged slang. 'Shiva wept!' is the most notable one, used in moments of incredulity, exasperation and/or rage. Another like that is 'double carthaginian hell!' which is just fun to say and is used nearly the same way.

The names of Thor and Odin are also used as meaningful slang in Rae's world, which just means that Sunshine tries to watch her language while in the bar. >_>

'Thor' means something that is meant to be Big and Loud and Amazing and Powerful but ends up being just big, loud, and kind of dumb. "The City Council thought the Other Museum would be totally thor, but it's public exhibits are really lowest-common denominator stuff."

'Odin' means something that is genuinely big and powerful and actually deserving of respect and caution. "His master before the Liberty Wars sounded like your common or garden-variety world-takeover odin vampire thug."

'Kali' means something that will utterly fuck your shit to pieces and leave you as a bloody smear on the pavement. "She said 'sorcerer' like most people would say 'pond slime.' Of course, when my mother said 'sorcerer,' she meant 'pond slime.' Lunatic toxic Kali pond slime."

'nomad' is a term meaning something shady, dubious or untrustworthy, or something that is other than it's made out to be. "I wouldn't try anything nomad." "...I mean, aside from the nomad blood of people like us..."

[chanter1944]

Sariel isn't the biggest swearer in the multiverse, but it's not unheard of for her to cuss. I know earlier Trek canon says that colorful metaphors are a thing of the past, but later series had a few choice words sprinkled in (I'm thinking of Picard saying 'Merd!' here, as well as a couple instances of 'damn' and 'what the hell?' flying around). Sariel's got two first languages to express herself in if the need arises, English and Kweyol. Anything else she's picked up either came from fellow officers or Milliways, though she hasn't really had a reason to learn *those* sorts of words from anyone.

Don't even get me started on my own mixed-up profanity. Extremely geeky+language nerd+oldtime radio fan=some very convoluted exclamations indeed!