Alternatives to cuss words

stardustx

Dreaming about fictional characters
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jan 7, 2014
Messages
131
Reaction score
7
Location
Somewhere in my dreams.
I'm writing a fantasy story where one of the characters is a pirate. I do not want to use any cuss or curse words, but I want the character to be believable or realistic.

For example, I know a pirate might say "bloody" but, knowing the history behind the word, I don't believe I can use that.

Does anyone have any (good, clean, appropriate) alternatives to cuss words? (I'm going off of the definition of cuss and curse words from this post.)
 

Kylabelle

unaccounted for
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jan 3, 2013
Messages
26,200
Reaction score
4,015
Make them up! Get imaginative.

Blooter me springles, and you're a writer! By the hairs on the moon, no one will care.

But you have to have a bit of a list to work from, and re-use them, so it becomes part of that character's speech, and recognizable.

:D

ETA: And my examples aren't very good. You can do better, I'm sure.
 

Haggis

Evil, undead Chihuahua
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Oct 14, 2005
Messages
56,217
Reaction score
18,303
Location
A dark, evil place.
Well, Robert Louis Stephenson managed to do it with Treasure Island (IIRC). But I'm not convinced it would work with an adult audience. Kids today? Dunno. Maybe. But like Kyla says, go ahead and make up your own curses. Make it a part of his character. Maybe you can make him an evil, mean, murderous pirate who for some reason fears Hell and thinks he can avoid it by not cursing, even as he does these other terrible things. Lots of ways you could go with this. Go for it.
 

Ken

Banned
Kind Benefactor
Joined
Dec 28, 2007
Messages
11,478
Reaction score
6,198
Location
AW. A very nice place!
Instead of euphemisms, maybe just leave out the cusses altogether. Fantasy needn't be realistic. So there's no law saying your pirates must cuss. And you know something? A fair amount of pirate lingo is probably stereotype anyway. So you really wouldn't be taking that much artistic liberty.
 

Torgo

Formerly Phantom of Krankor.
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Apr 7, 2005
Messages
7,632
Reaction score
1,204
Location
London, UK
Website
torgoblog.blogspot.com
I would go for nautical invective. "You Dutch-built quiz!" "You grass-combing lubber!" - that sort of thing.
 

readmikenow

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Mar 9, 2014
Messages
53
Reaction score
1
Location
Western Hemisphere
If cussing doesn't move the story forward there really isn't a need for it. As far as trying to be realistic on how people speak you can always find people who don't swear when the speak. It's been even done in some rather popular Pirate moves such as those with Johnny Depp.
 

Kylabelle

unaccounted for
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jan 3, 2013
Messages
26,200
Reaction score
4,015
I would go for nautical invective. "You Dutch-built quiz!" "You grass-combing lubber!" - that sort of thing.

Yarrrrr! Spit on me cutlass and call it a noodle, Torgo, but them's much better curses than those poor things of mine!

:D
 

Torgo

Formerly Phantom of Krankor.
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Apr 7, 2005
Messages
7,632
Reaction score
1,204
Location
London, UK
Website
torgoblog.blogspot.com
Yarrrrr! Spit on me cutlass and call it a noodle, Torgo, but them's much better curses than those poor things of mine!

:D

Both from Patrick O'Brian novels! There's a lot more like that and really nothing much you'd think of as vulgar these days. ('Bugger' is about as rude as it regularly gets.)
 

Literateparakeet

Nerdy Budgie
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Dec 31, 2011
Messages
1,386
Reaction score
226
Location
Seattle
Website
lesliesillusions.blogspot.com
I love Torgo's...errr, Patrick O'Brien's ideas.

I think so much depends on your book, I mean what age level and is it serious or light-hearted. Pirates of the Caribbean pulled it off without swearing.

My best suggestion...Torgo's post gave me this idea...is go for the insult. If you mean to be serious but not swear, then have them insult and threaten. I think you could get a lot of mileage out of that.

Personally, I do swear occasionally--I think it has it's place. But when I don't want to swear, I make up my own words...for example, I often say "caricoles" because the hard consonants in it are very satisfying when I am angry. It's a Spanish word that means 'snails' it might seem odd to Spanish-speaking folks, but no one has ever asked me about it. I think it's no more odd than saying "darn" which just makes everyone think of damn anyway. So perhaps some good hard consonants for your characters?
 

Maryn

Sees All
Staff member
Super Moderator
Moderator
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 12, 2005
Messages
55,446
Reaction score
25,466
Location
Snow Cave
When our kids were small and I didn't want them picking up age-inappropriate vocabulary, I used to say "Blowfish!"when I would ordinarily have sworn. Of course, Hootie ruined that as a non-curse, but there's satisfaction in finding a word which works as an alternative.

If the writer chooses to avoid swearing, insults are the way to go, IMO. Although on a personal level, I might have issues with plausibility of a pirate who does not curse in any work intended for adult readers--but that's just me, not likely the intended readership.

Maryn, who swears
 

stardustx

Dreaming about fictional characters
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jan 7, 2014
Messages
131
Reaction score
7
Location
Somewhere in my dreams.
It's a young adult book. I think the idea of insults and threats would work better, I was just thinking of when in movies, etc., they use an exclamation. I had only seen the first Pirates of the Caribbean, and since that has been a while, I didn't really know that about the films.
 

Jacob_Wallace

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Nov 29, 2012
Messages
250
Reaction score
2
Location
Tennessee
You don't have to fill your dialogue with swear words. If your character revolved around swearing, probably wasn't that great of a character anyway. Just write the character normally. You can always write "he swore" or something along those lines if you want to show him losing his cool.

You can write pirates without swearing, or even going over the top with pirate speak (though if you want that, by all means use it). I mean, watch Pirates of the Carribean. I don't remember any swearing in any of the four movies.
 

writingismypassion

~Charity~
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Apr 5, 2011
Messages
934
Reaction score
24
Location
Podunk, Illinois
I like the idea making up your own words or phrases unique to your character that shows his anger or frustration. A made up expletive can be just as effective, and possibly more entertaining, than a real one.
 

Literateparakeet

Nerdy Budgie
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Dec 31, 2011
Messages
1,386
Reaction score
226
Location
Seattle
Website
lesliesillusions.blogspot.com
I didn't think to share this until now...but eons ago my best friend went to Correctional Officer Training Academy to learn to be a "prison guard". The instructors wanted to prepare the students to be yelled at by angry inmates. So they had them come up two at a time and swear at one another. You get numb to it after awhile, so my friend thought, "I can do better." When it was her turn she looked at her partner with disgust and said things like, "Do you ever wash/comb your hair? And look at your uniform did you sleep in it?" LOL, she could have been crueler but she is not a cruel person. The point is her partner said, "I wish she would have sworn at me instead. That would have been easier to take."

So yeah, a good insult really can substitute for a swear. And since they are fictional characters you can get as cruel as you want. :)
 

E.F.B.

Stories, stories everywhere
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 26, 2014
Messages
6,352
Reaction score
1,832
Location
Valinor
Website
www.etsy.com
As far as insults go, my dear, sweet, Christian, great-grandmother was known to call people "stupid-idiots" on occasion. Not to their faces of course, but if someone cut her off in traffic, or someone on the news (mostly politicians) were doing something she was unhappy about, she'd say they were stupid-idiots because they weren't just idiots, they were stupid ones too.

If we're talking about exclamatory statements, my paternal grandmother sometimes exclaims, "Oh my stars and garters!"

I don't know if "stupid-idiot" or "oh my stars and garters" are something a pirate would say, but at least you have some options.;)
 

E.F.B.

Stories, stories everywhere
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 26, 2014
Messages
6,352
Reaction score
1,832
Location
Valinor
Website
www.etsy.com
I mean, watch Pirates of the Carribean. I don't remember any swearing in any of the four movies.

Actually they did swear several times in each movie. It was light, and most of it was stuff like "bloody" or "bugger", but "damn" and "bastard" got slipped in there a few times too.

One of their non-cursing exclamations that always struck me as funny was, "Well slap me thrice and hand me to my mother!"
 

Poet of Gore

Banned
Joined
Aug 24, 2013
Messages
71
Reaction score
3
how about words like "muggle" and "mung"? just get stuff that sounds dirty. i mean, mud blood is dirty sounding. ok, so lets make your book about wizards and witches instead of pirates and we got this hammered out.
 

Dennis E. Taylor

Get it off! It burns!
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 1, 2014
Messages
2,602
Reaction score
365
Location
Beautiful downtown Mordor
I actually just got a comment from one of my betas, questioning if the amount of cursing in my MS is appropriate for the genre. The way I figure it, if and when I get to the point of the novel being edited for publication, the editor will likely have opinions on that. If so, I'll change it. If not, wasn't important.
 

Roxxsmom

Beastly Fido
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Oct 24, 2011
Messages
23,083
Reaction score
10,777
Location
Where faults collide
Website
doggedlywriting.blogspot.com
There are still fantasy novels where people don't use modern sounding curse words, or ones that refer to things some folks might consider crude. For me, it depends on the overall voice and tone of the work. If it's sort of an adventurous, idealized version of a pirate story, then it's probably fine to have them saying "yar" instead of the "s" word and so on.

And it's certainly possible to make up words that are profane in the context of your world or culture but that don't hit the squicky buttons for some modern readers. Some real word swearing really doesn't work in a fantasy world. Anything invoking specific religious figures that don't exist in your world, for instance. I tend to have made-up religious swears in mine (that reflect the gods and sensibilities of my various cultures--no point in saying "damn" if the culture has no concept of damnation), but use real world words for excrement, people of low character, body parts, and sex acts (assuming that these would be translated).

But that's me. Every writer is different.
 

Deb Kinnard

Banned
Flounced
Joined
Apr 28, 2008
Messages
2,382
Reaction score
311
Location
Casa Chaos
Website
www.debkinnard.com
One of the richest insults ever voiced is in the (otherwise lame) Robin Williams "Peter Pan" movie. I think the Peter character called the robber-boy leader a "junior high school math teacher."

If you're in your first draft, I'd write exactly what you feel your cussing character might actually say. Then in second draft, once you've mulled the words you want to put in the final piece, do a search-and-replace for your cuss words. That way you will catch the "rhythm" of the language used and all you need to do is delete the really blue stuff.

A good cuss-out has its own rhythm. Another good example is Winston Graham in the "Poldark" series, where he has Jud Paynter insult another character by saying something like, "There never was an Illuggan man what wasn't the dirty cross-eyed son of an unmarried mother wi' no chest and spavin shanks out of a knacker's yard." (copied without apology from the book because it's too brilliant not to quote verbatim).

Needless to say, an all-out brawl ensues...
 

Gregg Bell

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Oct 2, 2015
Messages
920
Reaction score
164
Location
Itasca, Illinois (U.S.)
I'm writing a fantasy story where one of the characters is a pirate. I do not want to use any cuss or curse words, but I want the character to be believable or realistic.

For example, I know a pirate might say "bloody" but, knowing the history behind the word, I don't believe I can use that.

Does anyone have any (good, clean, appropriate) alternatives to cuss words? (I'm going off of the definition of cuss and curse words from this post.)

Does anyone have any (good, clean, appropriate) alternatives to cuss words?


I'm sorry but that is really funny. LOL!

I go with 'hell' and 'damn' when necessary, but if you shy away from 'bloody' that might not work for you.
 

christopherdschmitz

Banned
Spammer
Joined
Dec 30, 2015
Messages
80
Reaction score
12
Location
MN
I would go for nautical invective. "You Dutch-built quiz!" "You grass-combing lubber!" - that sort of thing.
haha! loved it... my grandfather was an artist at inventing new profanities (usually mixing in new forms of old four-letter favorites) I remember my father telling me "what Grandpa says in the garage is never to be repeated."
I usually break from actual dialogue, like this.
"Why am I the only one around here that ever carries a gun?" Jayne turned, exasperated, and banged his head on the bulkhead of the tiny space freighter. His hand shot to his forehead as he shouted a string of profanities. "Somebody get that doctor!"