Stuff like “god damn”, “fucking hell”, etc. Anything that stems from religious sources. That includes fudged varieties like “jeez/geez” and “heck”.
And to clarify, this isn’t some attempt to avoid blasphemy or anything. I’m not particularly religious and would rather rewrite the neural pathways for those “defaults”, but haven’t been able to come up with satisfactory alternatives so far.
*To clarify further, I’m all good with most other curses (shit, fuck, ass, etc). I’m not trying to be inoffensive, just non-religious.
Blood and bloody ashes
“Aw biscuits”
I’m sorry but although your objective is to rewire your neurons, in order to be understood by others with precision you would have to first change culture - and that takes a long, long time.
So in English you probably don’t have good substitutes that don’t sound religious outside of those you already mentioned and their varieties. I’d be asking a similar question to people who speak other languages, that can be fun to explore and see what other cultures use instead of “fucking hell” or “holy shit” if they have translatable expressions that don’t include anything religious.
I’m not really too worried about being understood, just working on it for myself. And honestly, I think anything could be said in a certain way and be understood as a curse/outburst. Borrowing from different languages is a good idea, though!
That’s so fetch!
Alan Davies from QI taught me that instead of “shut the fuck up!” one can say “shut the front door!”
Shut The Front Door!
Jesus titty fucking Christ can be any name you want.
salt titty fucking esc
doesn’t quite roll off the tongue tho
Jaba the titty fucking kek. Rolls well
I’ll admit I lurked a bit to see if you’re US- based and it looks like you are. Maybe instead of “Jesus Christ” you can use “Abraham Lincoln?”
Like “Abraham fucking Lincoln in a cabin made of shit logs” could be a satisfactory expression of frustration.
Any name you can remember easily could work; Billy Crystal, Woody Guthrie, Greta Thunberg, even your neighbors or pets’ names.
The others will be a bit tough since they’re so ingrained in our culture but depending how “non-religious” you intend to be you can switch to “curse/hex” and wean yourself off of that into something more secular ¯\(ツ)/¯
I actually LOL’d at Billy Crystal
I think you may be the only commenter who actually read the post.
I got tired of trying, live in the Bible belt and grew up with all those words as my lexicon.
God damn, oh god, Jesus christ, etc. If anything feels good because religious people dislike it lol
Meanwhile French Quebec curse words are entirely made of religious words.
Hosti de sacrifice de câlice de tabarnak!!!
Lol, Catalan is very similar in that.
Ma cago en el cor sagrat de Deu!
Avis: Vous avez été exilé de [email protected]
Notice: You have been exiled from [email protected]
Tabarnak !
If anyone wants an example of Québecois swearing, I recommend checking out Lorembarnak. It’s lorem ipsum but tabarnak-ified.
German has a rich vocabulary of non-religious swears:
https://dein-sprachcoach.de/schimpfwoerter-jetzt-wird-es-schmutzig/
Excellent
For once I’m glad my fellow Dutchman haven’t colonized this thread yet, and instead we get a German invasion.
I know a pastor that will say “mother father!” in lieu of motherfucker
To be clear, it’s a tongue in cheek nod to motherfucker as well.
Could you replace them with the swear words you don’t mind saying? Or am I not understanding what you’re looking for?
e.g. “For Christ sake” can be replaced with, “for fuck sake”.
Fuck’s sake*
Hank Green made a video about this exact phrase
TIL
Gyatt damn is my latest favorite. It sounds close enough but is absolutely absurd when you think about it. “Thick-ass damn!”
AFAIK, “gyatt” is from the way people say “g-d damn”. As in, it’s what certain people said when they saw the thing the word has now been associated with.
I use “fucking terts” when I’m angry at a specific person (“terts” is a derogatory term for earth humans (from Alien Nation), and “furless human” when I’m in a slightly amused mood (it’s what my cat used to curse me).
Blathering Blatherskites! Great Scott! Great Googly Moogly Narf! Blech Hot Dog! Hot diggity! Salad! Biscuits! Corn Nuggets! Nerfherder Awoooguhhhh! Ballyhoo Farfegnugen To the mattresses! Shoo whee
Rackin’ frackin’ varmint!
