Alternatives to effing
'Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.' Mark Twain
Swearing is usually ace. But there are times when effing and blinding just won’t work, such as:
Improvising a bedtime story for your niece and/or nephew (we really should make up a collective term for them).
Entertaining an octogenarian.
In a silent, echoey place of worship.
When you want to emphasise in a surprising way.
Ubiquity has reduced expletives' shock value, and made them a little less useful.
I’ve started collecting words that already have a job to do but, given the chance, can moonlight as exclamations. They aren’t blasphemous, or anatomical, sexual etc, but they sound like they might be. My criteria for the words are:
Feel a bit rude, taste a bit salty, though they aren’t when I think about it.
Satisfying to shout.
Made of consonants that blow out candles.
Make me giggle.
Some of them I’ve noticed in everyday usage, others I found in wordbooks – I can’t resist giving underused terms an outing.
'The urge to shout filthy words at the top of his voice was as strong as ever.' George Orwell
I present the collection so far. Try them for yourself. They work best shouted, although I find muttering a few in a row almost as gratifying. Please insert your own exclamation marks (too many make me itch).
Boggart a hobgoblin
Bladderwrack sea weed
Cicatrix a mark or scar left after a wound has healed
Clapperclaw to scratch, drub or revile
Clinker a brick
Cockernony hair gathered in a snood
Cranch grind with a crushing sound (unless you're a Scanner living in vain)
Cribbage
Cubicle
Cufflinks
Cummerbund
Cuthbert a person in a cushy job
Dabchick little grebe
Davenport a small writing desk
Dawplucker synonym for libeller
Ditty-bag a sailor’s bag for needles
Funk-hole a cushy job for a Cuthbert
Gleek an enticing glance
Gossoon a boy
Gussets (I prefer the plural)
Jackanape a pert fellow
Muckworm a miser
Krummhorn a wind instrument
Piccalilli
Pinnywinkles a very pretty name for a thumbscrew
Saucebox an impudent person
Shandygaff a mixture of beer and ginger beer
Shram cause to shrink
Skiffle
Woolsack a wool cushion
If you’ve shouted a few of those, I hope you’re now feeling especially jolly.
I bet there's some corkers I haven't found yet, and I haven’t even started on place-names. Do you have any candidates?
The sort of twee person who thinks swearing is in any way a sign of a lack of education or a lack of verbal interest is just a fucking lunatic. Stephen Fry
A footnote on sci fi swearing
Science fiction provides made-up curses for all occasions, which even have their own Wikipedia entry. You may wish to know that, according The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, the worst swearword in the universe is Belgium.