Curses! (SF interjections)
Dreamer
exclaiming, "God pound it!" at a printer which did not what I wanted, but
what I asked it to do, I wonder if others here find themselves using any SF
expressions in their speech, particularly in times of stress. If you have
any funny stories about same, please feel free to share them.
As for me, I do use "God pound it!" from time to time. This is sort of a
combined steal from Stephen King/Peter Straub's _The Talisman_ and Stephen
R. Donaldson's "Mordant's Need." I've also been known to use "Scorch it and
sear it!" and "Shells and shards!" which I must admit come from McCaffery's
"Dragonflight" universe. (Hey, I was an impressionable Yout.) I seem to have
a cyclical sort of interjection-of-the-month thing going on.
D
El Capitan
"Dreamer" <dre...@dreamstrike.com> wrote:
As a grade school kid, I gleefully used "Frak" from the TV series
Battlestar Galactica because it was close to one of the naughty 7 words.
Well, six, now, apparently. Props to Bono for breaking the barrier.
The only other one I picked up (and still let slip today, to my friends
awed disbelief) is Sean Penn's "Gnarly" from Fast Times at Ridgemont
High. I know, not SF, but THE teen movie from my HS years.
EC
Dreamer
"El Capitan" <pir...@airmail.net> wrote in message
news:pirate-66179E....@library.airnews.net...
I occasionally find myself saying "Pusbucket!" or even "Mother pusbucket!"
as used by Bill Murray in "Ghostbusters." I know what you mean.
For those not familiar with the phrase, say it like this: "MO-ther
PUS-bucket!" fairly slow, and you'll understand what it's supposed to sound
vaguely like.
D
Peter Meilinger
>Having just recieved a *very* odd look from one of the users here for
>exclaiming, "God pound it!" at a printer which did not what I wanted, but
>what I asked it to do, I wonder if others here find themselves using any SF
>expressions in their speech, particularly in times of stress. If you have
>any funny stories about same, please feel free to share them.
I say "Son of a whore!" fairly frequently. I got that from one
of the books based on the movie MASH. Neither the movie nor the
books are science fiction, though the books definitely don't
depict reality as we know it. Very fun reads, though.
I've been known to use "Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick!" from
time to time. I'm not sure where I got that one, but I know
I didn't come up with it on my own.
Pete
Peter Meilinger
>I say "Son of a whore!" fairly frequently. I got that from one
It occurs to me that this is a fairly accurate translation
of a typical curse in Spanish. That's not where I got it
from, though. In the MASH books, whore is pronounced ho-wah.
Took me a while to figure out what they were saying, but
I was young.
Pete
Ross TenEyck
I seem to recall a (short) fad, after "Spy Kids" came out, of kids
saying, "Holy shiiiiiiiiitake mushrooms!"
--
================== http://www.alumni.caltech.edu/~teneyck ==================
Ross TenEyck Seattle, WA \ Light, kindled in the furnace of hydrogen;
ten...@alumni.caltech.edu \ like smoke, sunlight carries the hot-metal
Are wa yume? Soretomo maboroshi? \ tang of Creation's forge.
Mark Atwood
>
> I've been known to use "Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick!" from
> time to time. I'm not sure where I got that one, but I know
> I didn't come up with it on my own.
I use "Jesus Fucking Jumping Joker Christ", which I got
from the /Wildcards/ series.
--
Mark Atwood | When you do things right,
m...@pobox.com | people won't be sure you've done anything at all.
http://www.pobox.com/~mra
Dorothy J Heydt
Peter Meilinger <mell...@bu.edu> wrote:
>
>I've been known to use "Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick!" from
>time to time. I'm not sure where I got that one, but I know
>I didn't come up with it on my own.
There are a lot of variants on that, including the shorter
"Christ on a bike!" Compare Norwegian (I think it's Norwegian)
"Vorherre till hest!" "Our Lord on a horse!" Sounds as if the
Lord's name might have been changed at some point and the horse
used to have more legs.
Modern variants include "Mohammed on a mo-ped!"
Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djh...@kithrup.com
John H
"Mark Atwood" <m...@pobox.com> wrote in message
news:m3u167n...@khem.blackfedora.com...
> Peter Meilinger <mell...@bu.edu> writes:
> >
> > I've been known to use "Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick!" from
> > time to time. I'm not sure where I got that one, but I know
> > I didn't come up with it on my own.
>
> I use "Jesus Fucking Jumping Joker Christ", which I got
> from the /Wildcards/ series.
"Jesus Horseshoe Tapdancing Christ" from the Bureau 13 books for me. I
still use that and "Taplinger Jones" (where's that from? book had a cat
and battle armor in it) every so often.
john
David Cowie
>
> I occasionally find myself saying "Pusbucket!" or even "Mother pusbucket!"
> as used by Bill Murray in "Ghostbusters." I know what you mean.
>
> For those not familiar with the phrase, say it like this: "MO-ther
> PUS-bucket!" fairly slow, and you'll understand what it's supposed to sound
> vaguely like.
There is a TV version of the vaguely SFnal film _Repo Man_ in which all of
the F and MF words have been replaced by "Flip" and "Melon Farmer". Most
of the people who were called Melon Farmer were Mexican, and until I
caught on, I thought Melon Farmer was an ethnic slur I wasn't aware of.
--
David Cowie david_cowie at lineone dot net
Dorothy J Heydt
And a guy I know expands the H in "Jesus H. Christ" into
"Haploid."
Mike Schilling
"Aaron Fucking Boone!" for the past week or so.
Gene Ward Smith
>In article <bmp6l8$90a$4...@news3.bu.edu>,
>Peter Meilinger <mell...@bu.edu> wrote:
>>
>>I've been known to use "Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick!" from
>>time to time. I'm not sure where I got that one, but I know
>>I didn't come up with it on my own.
>
>There are a lot of variants on that, including the shorter
>"Christ on a bike!"
Also "Christ on a crutch!"
Eloise Mason (nee Beltz-Decker)
Not a book, but Farscape's swear words seem to have taken over my
brain: 'dren,' which from context in the show clearly means some sort of
waste substance of various animals[1], 'frell,' which is clearly sexual
activity of some unstated sort[2], 'mivonx', which not only did I think
was 'mivonks' to start with, but is some form of internal organ and used
linguistically in a homologous way to the English word 'balls'[3] or its
equivalents in other Earth languages ('cojones', for example).
Also, during her early-eighties stint as a general contractor
(coordinator of people who build houses and structures, for those not
familiar with the jargon) and carpenter, my mother had to come up with a
way to swear that would nonetheless maintain something of a respectful
distance between her and the guys -- a chick who swears a blue streak is,
well, perhaps fair game for other things, or was then, there, and in that
company. She carefully trained herself until even in extremis what
exploded from her lips was an angry, "FOR-nicating hippo-POT-ami!!"
[1] The batlike creatures that live in Moya's central core produce, ah,
waist-deep liquid dren that, um, forms a layer inside Moya's hull and
guards against micropunctures. Pilot said so. Honest. It wasn't just so
they could make the spoiled princess wade around in muck and complain. :->
[2] Several times, one of a mated pair will exclaim "Frell!" angrily, get
a saucy response from partner, and specify, "No, *bad* frell."
[3] "How is it?" "We're frelled. Mivonx-on-a-platter frelled."
--
Eloise Mason (nee Beltz-Decker)
elo...@fishdragon.com - website: http://www.fishdragon.com/
"Here's to the Tenth Great Success! Or is it the Eleventh? And we've
survived all of them. ... Survived them, and the Six Great Errors,
and the Three Incredible Fuckups, and the Nine Greatest Incidents of
Bad Luck. A miracle! There must be hungry ghosts holding big umbrellas
over us, brothers." -- A Chinese military officer in Kim Stanley
Robinson's alternate history, _Years of Rice and Salt_
The Demon Prince
The Demon Prince
aka William Dukinfield of Bristol
aka Brimstone Billy, Captain of the "Cardiff Rose"
TDM, OYKB Knight, Defender of the OTW
FG, *C*AF, XGMC
Lord Yuk Fu of Sarcastica - Master of the Motorcade
Priest to the AFR Goddess of Innocence and Wenches-To-Be
Captain of the Meadery - Chief Taster of the Brew
Serpentus Proteus, Advocate of Arachne and
Champion of the Precept that Real Men Do Wear Lace
Probationary Member - Guild of St. Wilde
Dave #1, Society of Daves
95 ACE - "Baby"
97 FLSTS - "Heartbreaker"
The Demon Prince
>I've been known to use "Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick!" from
>time to time. I'm not sure where I got that one, but I know
>I didn't come up with it on my own.
I lifted "Jesus Tap-Dancing Christ" from South Park.
The Demon Prince
wrote:
>The only other one I picked up (and still let slip today, to my friends
>awed disbelief) is Sean Penn's "Gnarly" from Fast Times at Ridgemont
>High. I know, not SF, but THE teen movie from my HS years.
From the Teen Comedy film genre, I lifted "Hienous", "Odious" and
"Bogus" (Bill And Ted's Excellent Adventure/Bogus Joourney).
wth...@godzilla5.acpub.duke.edu
"Jesus H Christ on a Harley-Davidson" was oft used
by Spinrad (in "Bug Jack Barron", I think). I heard
people say that at the time, but haven't since the
1970s.
William Hyde
EOS Department
Duke University
Andrew Plotkin
>
> Not a book, but Farscape's swear words seem to have taken over my
> brain
They are exceptionally usable, but really it's because they're not
very alien. As you more-or-less note, they might as well be saying
"fuck", "shit", "balls".
(Oh, don't neglect "tralk", == "whore".)
> Also, during her early-eighties stint as a general contractor
> (coordinator of people who build houses and structures, for those not
> familiar with the jargon) and carpenter, my mother had to come up with a
> way to swear that would nonetheless maintain something of a respectful
> distance between her and the guys -- a chick who swears a blue streak is,
> well, perhaps fair game for other things, or was then, there, and in that
> company. She carefully trained herself until even in extremis what
> exploded from her lips was an angry, "FOR-nicating hippo-POT-ami!!"
Nice. Perhaps too many unstressed syllables.
> [2] Several times, one of a mated pair will exclaim "Frell!" angrily, get
> a saucy response from partner, and specify, "No, *bad* frell."
Or, in one episode I recall, "Yes! *Now* frell!" (camera cut.)
--Z
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
* Make your vote count. Get your vote counted.
Scott Robinson
wrote:
>In article <BNUjb.412$Uz6...@newsread1.news.atl.earthlink.net>,
While I've never used them, I'm sure Robert Anton Wilson had a long
shot hope of his mapping of (US) Supreme Court justices to the seven
words you can't say on television (plus two favorite sexual acts)
becoming popular.
Scott
Dreamer
"Dorothy J Heydt" <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote in message
news:HMwzs...@kithrup.com...
I forget where I heard it, but the longest conversion of that one I know is
"Jesus, Mary and Joseph the Carpenter from Brooklyn Heights."
D
how...@brazee.net
swearing was of some side-kick.
Unfortunately, once swearing could be put in novels, no author has succeeded
in keeping this myth alive.
how...@brazee.net
Piss was an euphemism that spawned Pee.
Jimmy the Cricket was a replacement for Jiminy Cricket which was Jesus
Christ.
And some perfectly good words turn bad when we forget what "bitch" means.
There was a time when people would no more refer to a female dog than they
would a female bull.
It's odd that the word "poop" has become acceptable. A 3 year old can tell
the world he's going to go poop. On TV. Dog Poop is OK. But shit isn't
OK unless you say it to mean something else. e.g. That is Bull Shit, or
That is B.S.
Timothy McDaniel
<how...@brazee.net> wrote:
>I remember reading books where the hero stood back to admire how good
>the swearing was of some side-kick.
Wasn't there a bit in _Starship Troopers_ where Juan Rico admires the
abuse from Sgt. Zim, wishing he'd had Zim on his high-school debate
team, noting that he went on for several minutes without repetition or
obscenity?
Back to the main topic: there was a Poul Anderson story, I think,
where someone, van Rijn I presume, used something like "dood und
undergang", which I guess means "death and damnation", presumably in
Dutch. Does anyone have the correct spelling, a recollection of this,
or whatnot?
--
Tim McDaniel, tm...@panix.com; tm...@us.ibm.com is my work address
how...@brazee.net
On 17-Oct-2003, Peter Meilinger <mell...@bu.edu> wrote:
> In the MASH books, whore is pronounced ho-wah.
> Took me a while to figure out what they were saying, but
> I was young.
It took me a long time to learn that some people pronounce it "ho". I
guess the word never came up in oral conversation.
how...@brazee.net
Cheese and Crackers Got All Muddy!
Mike Schilling
<how...@brazee.net> wrote in message
news:LUZjb.509$S52...@newsread4.news.pas.earthlink.net...
> Of course, sometimes the "bad" words evolve.
>
> Piss was an euphemism that spawned Pee.
>
> Jimmy the Cricket was a replacement for Jiminy Cricket which was Jesus
> Christ.
>
> And some perfectly good words turn bad when we forget what "bitch" means.
> There was a time when people would no more refer to a female dog than they
> would a female bull.
And we all know how the confusion of "ass" and "arse" made "donkey" the
common word for it. I read once that even "whore" began as a euphemism,
since it's cognate with Latin "carus" meaning dear one.
Captain Button
"Dreamer" <dre...@dreamstrike.com> wrote:
>Having just recieved a *very* odd look from one of the users here for
>exclaiming, "God pound it!" at a printer which did not what I wanted, but
>what I asked it to do, I wonder if others here find themselves using any SF
>expressions in their speech, particularly in times of stress. If you have
>any funny stories about same, please feel free to share them.
>
>As for me, I do use "God pound it!" from time to time. This is sort of a
>combined steal from Stephen King/Peter Straub's _The Talisman_ and Stephen
>R. Donaldson's "Mordant's Need." I've also been known to use "Scorch it and
>sear it!" and "Shells and shards!" which I must admit come from McCaffery's
>"Dragonflight" universe. (Hey, I was an impressionable Yout.) I seem to have
>a cyclical sort of interjection-of-the-month thing going on.
I've developed a semi-common habit of using Simelan swearwords like
"Shen!", "Shuven!", "Shidoni!", and "Shen and Shidoni!" without
particularly intending to.
They are from Jacqueline Lichtenberg's Sime~Gen novels and mean various
degrees of transfer abort backlash.
(Of course, to use them properly I'd need to make the appropriate nageric
adjustments, but that is beyond the crude abilities of a Wild Killer Gen
like me.)
--
"We have to go forth and crush every world view that doesn't believe in
tolerance and free speech," - David Brin
Captain Button - but...@io.com
Mike Schilling
<how...@brazee.net> wrote in message
news:uWZjb.511$S52...@newsread4.news.pas.earthlink.net...
> I have sometimes said the punch line of a joke:
>
> Cheese and Crackers Got All Muddy!
"Crackers"?
I would understand "Rice".
David Tate
>
> And a guy I know expands the H in "Jesus H. Christ" into
> "Haploid."
As do I. I got it from Cecil Adams's _The Straight Dope_; it's
probably a good bet that the guy you know did too, perhaps indirectly.
The Basque character in Trevanian's novel _Shibumi_ had some nice
interjections, but the only one I can (mis?)remember at the moment is
"God's nipples!".
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (radio script) provides a few
good ones, too, mostly from the mouth of Zaphod Beeblebrox:
Father of Zarquon!
Zarquon's knees!
Holy Zarquon's singing fish!!!
Swut!
Belgium!
G-force!
Phrreeow!
David Tate
Leif Magnar Kj|nn|y
Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote:
>
>And a guy I know expands the H in "Jesus H. Christ" into
>"Haploid."
I could swear I've heard (or seen) this used in at least a couple of
different contexts. Might be independent derivations; great minds
think alike, after all.
Personally I have sometimes used Chtulhu Mythos names to swear by;
a lot of them seem very suitable for the purpose.
--
Leif Kjønnøy, Geek of a Few Trades. http://www.pvv.org/~leifmk
Disclaimer: Do not try this at home.
Void where prohibited by law.
Batteries not included.
Timothy McDaniel
David Tate <dt...@ida.org> wrote:
>The Basque character in Trevanian's novel _Shibumi_ had some nice
>interjections, but the only one I can (mis?)remember at the moment is
>"God's nipples!".
"God's [body part]" was not unknown in the Middle Ages, as I recall.
I think I picked up "God's teeth and toenails" from one of the early
Plantagenets.
John H
"Leif Magnar Kj|nn|y" <lei...@pvv.ntnu.no> wrote in message
news:bmprnb$p7h$1...@tyfon.itea.ntnu.no...
> In article <HMwzs...@kithrup.com>,
> Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote:
> >
> >And a guy I know expands the H in "Jesus H. Christ" into
> >"Haploid."
>
> I could swear I've heard (or seen) this used in at least a couple of
> different contexts. Might be independent derivations; great minds
> think alike, after all.
>
> Personally I have sometimes used Chtulhu Mythos names to swear by;
> a lot of them seem very suitable for the purpose.
I would too if I knew how to pronounce any of them. :-P
john <------------- non-phonetic reader
Default User
>
> I remember reading books where the hero stood back to admire how good the
> swearing was of some side-kick.
Some story I read (SF even) had something like, "a display of simple and
compound swearing that would have impressed a Terrestrial stevedore."
Brian Rodenborn
Richard Todd
> In article <APZjb.505$S52...@newsread4.news.pas.earthlink.net>,
> <how...@brazee.net> wrote:
>>I remember reading books where the hero stood back to admire how good
>>the swearing was of some side-kick.
>
> Wasn't there a bit in _Starship Troopers_ where Juan Rico admires the
> abuse from Sgt. Zim, wishing he'd had Zim on his high-school debate
> team, noting that he went on for several minutes without repetition or
> obscenity?
There's a similar scene in one of the Paratime stories by Piper ("Time Crime",
I think it was) where Tortha Karf is so pissed he begins by blaspheming *every*
deity on *every* timeline he's ever heard of, in alphabetical order. Alas,
he doesn't get far, only getting to an 4th-Level-timeline deity named
"Allah" before an incoming phone call interrupts him.
Mark Atwood
> Here, "Eloise Mason (nee Beltz-Decker)" <elo...@ripco.com> wrote:
> >
> > Not a book, but Farscape's swear words seem to have taken over my
> > brain
>
> They are exceptionally usable, but really it's because they're not
> very alien. As you more-or-less note, they might as well be saying
> "fuck", "shit", "balls".
One of the little thinks I liked so much about "Firefly"
was how they were basically saying "fuck", in all it's
varients, right under the FCC's Dirty Words List's nose.
--
Mark Atwood | When you do things right,
m...@pobox.com | people won't be sure you've done anything at all.
http://www.pobox.com/~mra
Mike Schilling
"Richard Todd" <rmt...@ichotolot.servalan.com> wrote in message
news:x7ad7zb...@ichotolot.servalan.com...
There's a is Asimov story in which a space pilot starts by cursing all the
planets, moves to the moon and asteroids, and collapses of exhaustion after
finishing the nearer fixed stars.
Mark Atwood
>
> Wasn't there a bit in _Starship Troopers_ where Juan Rico admires the
> abuse from Sgt. Zim, wishing he'd had Zim on his high-school debate
> team, noting that he went on for several minutes without repetition or
> obscenity?
Apparently, here in the real world, the US military's DI schools
apparently have an "unofficial" cussing contest. The rules are
basically the same as the real rules imposed on DIs in their job,
i.e., "no obscenity, no blasphemy, and no euphonic euphamisms for
them".
I've read transcripts. They are, franking, fucking impressive.
Mark Atwood
> Of course, sometimes the "bad" words evolve.
>
> Piss was an euphemism that spawned Pee.
What was it a euphemism *for*?
"Urine" doesnt sound very, well, Anglo-Saxon.
Michael S. Schiffer
>> Piss was an euphemism that spawned Pee.
> What was it a euphemism *for*?
> "Urine" doesnt sound very, well, Anglo-Saxon.
The OED doesn't say, but agrees that it was a euphemism (and not
Anglo-Saxon itself-- English got it from French a couple of centuries
after the Norman Conquest).
Mike
--
Michael S. Schiffer, LHN, FCS
msch...@condor.depaul.edu
John H
"Eloise Mason (nee Beltz-Decker)" <elo...@ripco.com> wrote in message
news:Pine.GSO.4.58.0310171418340.24663@shell2...
> On Fri, 17 Oct 2003, Dreamer wrote:
>
> [1] The batlike creatures that live in Moya's central core produce,
ah,
> waist-deep liquid dren that, um, forms a layer inside Moya's hull and
> guards against micropunctures. Pilot said so. Honest. It wasn't just
so
> they could make the spoiled princess wade around in muck and complain.
:->
>
> [2] Several times, one of a mated pair will exclaim "Frell!" angrily,
get
> a saucy response from partner, and specify, "No, *bad* frell."
>
> [3] "How is it?" "We're frelled. Mivonx-on-a-platter frelled."
>
>
This reminds me of Red Dwarf; smeg, smeghead, smeg off, etc.
And smeg reminds me of smurf, the word, not the name. I mean, what do
you think Brainy means when he says stuff like, "Smurf off!"
john
Steve Hilberg
>In article <APZjb.505$S52...@newsread4.news.pas.earthlink.net>,
> <how...@brazee.net> wrote:
>>I remember reading books where the hero stood back to admire how good
>>the swearing was of some side-kick.
>Wasn't there a bit in _Starship Troopers_ where Juan Rico admires the
>abuse from Sgt. Zim, wishing he'd had Zim on his high-school debate
>team, noting that he went on for several minutes without repetition or
>obscenity?
I am pretty sure -- there's also a short anecdote in the Colonial Marines
Technical Manual (one of the best piece of movie spinoff books ever made)
about a bunch of recruits on a bus to the training base who have heard that
the drill sergeants can't curse at the recruits.
The punchline of the anecdote is roughly something like "I never thought the
word "friggin" could be so damn scary."
--
Steve Hilberg <Necromancer> CITES Workstation Services Group
<hil...@uiuc.edu> KB9TEV
I don't even know what CITES stands
for, so I don't speak for them.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"As we were forged we shall return, perhaps some day. | VNV Nation,
I will remember you and wonder who we were." | "Further"
Dorothy J Heydt
<how...@brazee.net> wrote:
>I have sometimes said the punch line of a joke:
>
>Cheese and Crackers Got All Muddy!
Oh, that one's good. I sometimes say "Mother of Vinegar!"
Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djh...@kithrup.com
Dorothy J Heydt
mentioned the swearing in the Lensman series, sometimes by
Noshabkeming the Radiant but mostly by Klono's tungsten teeth,
curving carballoy claws, and other body parts (qq.v.).
Dorothy J Heydt
Timothy McDaniel <tm...@panix.com> wrote:
>
>Back to the main topic: there was a Poul Anderson story, I think,
>where someone, van Rijn I presume, used something like "dood und
>undergang", which I guess means "death and damnation", presumably in
>Dutch. Does anyone have the correct spelling, a recollection of this,
>or whatnot?
That sounds approximately right, but I don't speak Dutch either.
Poul also got away with a lot of swearing in Danish, including
"Pest og forbandelse," plague and damnation, as well as "Det var
som fanden," literally "that was like the devil," but
translatable as anywhere from "the hell you say" or "what the
hell?" according to context. There's a lot of miscellaneous
Danish and other swearing in _The Makeshift Spacecraft_,
originally _A Bicycle Built for Brew._
Andrew Wheeler
>
> I've been known to use "Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick!" from
> time to time. I'm not sure where I got that one, but I know
> I didn't come up with it on my own.
I got mine from the Dead Milkmen, but yours may have come from a
competing establishment.
This summer, older son and I have done a lot of "Cool." "Totally." (from
_Finding Nemo_) which, unfortunately is neither SFnal nor a curse.
Since I do have small children, and so am trying not to swear, I find
only inarticulate roars of rage really help. Anything from a book is
just too intellectualized to feel like *real* swearing. So I find myself
doing a Brian Blessed impression instead of talking at such moments lately.
(ObSF:...well, the *title* of "The Man Who Was Heavily Into Revenge"
comes to mind, but it doesn't really fit.)
--
Andrew Wheeler
--
There are two groups of people: those who divide people into two groups
and those who don't.
-Robert Benchley
Taki Kogoma
allegedly declared to rec.arts.sf.written...
>In article <9d67e55e.0310...@posting.google.com>,
>David Tate <dt...@ida.org> wrote:
>>The Basque character in Trevanian's novel _Shibumi_ had some nice
>>interjections, but the only one I can (mis?)remember at the moment is
>>"God's nipples!".
>
>"God's [body part]" was not unknown in the Middle Ages, as I recall.
>I think I picked up "God's teeth and toenails" from one of the early
>Plantagenets.
I've been seeing varations on this in Xena fanfic; "Ares' balls!",
"Hera's tits!", "Artemis' left butt-cheek", etc.
--
Capt. Gym Z. Quirk | /"\ ASCII RIBBON
(Known to some as Taki Kogoma) | \ / CAMPAIGN
quirk @ swcp.com | X AGAINST HTML MAIL
Veteran of the '91 sf-lovers re-org. | / \ AND POSTINGS
George Partlow
(snip)
> Back to the main topic: there was a Poul Anderson story, I think,
> where someone, van Rijn I presume, used something like "dood und
> undergang", which I guess means "death and damnation", presumably in
> Dutch. Does anyone have the correct spelling, a recollection of this,
> or whatnot?
"Dood en ondergang!". But it's not "death and damnation", which would
be "Dood en verdoeminis!", but rather someting like "death and ruin"
or "death and destruction". I don't clearly remember the context,
after 40 years or so, but I'm sure you're right and it's the
redoubtable Freeman van Rijn. He may have used it more than once,
and/or in more than one story.
George
PS I confess to briefly going around the dorm in a sarong sometime in
1964, during a van Rijn hero-worship phase. Fortunately neither my
dimensions nor my appetites are as gargantuan as his...
David Tate
> <how...@brazee.net> wrote:
> >I remember reading books where the hero stood back to admire how good
> >the swearing was of some side-kick.
>
> Wasn't there a bit in _Starship Troopers_ where Juan Rico admires the
> abuse from Sgt. Zim, wishing he'd had Zim on his high-school debate
> team, noting that he went on for several minutes without repetition or
> obscenity?
If so, it wasn't the only time Heinlein used the concept. Daniel
Boone Davis says something very similar about the physics professor in
_The Door Into Summer_.
David Tate
Molly Moloney
f-word. Not that I use it in everyday conversation, but I did find
myself muttering it a few times after a binge session of Farscape
marathoning a while back.
--
Molly Moloney
http://moloney.blogspot.com
Brenda W. Clough
Heinlein was drawing on a considerable literary tradition which seems to
be based on British naval history. Captain Good, in KING SOLOMON'S
MINES, is able to swear for fifteen minutes without repeating himself,
although in the usual discreet way of Victorian and Edwardian authors
Haggard never tells us exactly what he -says-. And there are
historical sailors who were famous for their swearing -- Taff Evans of
the Scott expedition, for instance. In fact when you wanted to describe
someone as a really notable cusser, he would be able to shock even
British sailors into respectful silence.
Brenda
--
---------
Brenda W. Clough
Read my novella "May Be Some Time"
Complete at http://www.fictionwise.com
My web page is at http://www.sff.net/people/Brenda/
Craig Richardson
>And some perfectly good words turn bad when we forget what "bitch" means.
>There was a time when people would no more refer to a female dog than they
>would a female bull.
>
>It's odd that the word "poop" has become acceptable. A 3 year old can tell
>the world he's going to go poop. On TV. Dog Poop is OK. But shit isn't
>OK unless you say it to mean something else. e.g. That is Bull Shit, or
>That is B.S.
And, of course, "frigging". Which has a technical meaning that would,
if commonly understood, cause it to be rendered unsuitable as a
euphemism for "fucking". For which it's not a true synonym in the
first place.
--Craig
--
I start to wish Bob Melvin would walk out to the mound, ask Freddy if he
was injured, and then kick him in the balls so he can call in an
emergency replacement from the bullpen --Derek Zumsteg in BP, 5/13/2003
Kevin Wald
news:m3brsft...@khem.blackfedora.com:
> how...@brazee.net writes:
>> Of course, sometimes the "bad" words evolve.
>> Piss was an euphemism that spawned Pee.
> What was it a euphemism *for*?
The two Anglo-Saxon (Old English) words I know of for urine
are _hland_ and _micga_ (and their variants). So if you want
to avoid the fancy French euphemism "piss", you can use their
modern descendants, "lant" and "mig", the only drawback being
that few will understand what you're talking about.
A somewhat stranger fate has befallen the Old English term
for penis, which has been completely replaced in its original
use by euphemisms and whimsical slang terms, but which
nonetheless survives to this day and is not even particularly
obscure.
Kevin Wald wa...@math.uchicago.edu | Half a quart ahead of the
http://www.math.uchicago.edu/~wald | Parisian's projection (6)
Ross TenEyck
Well, there's always _Three Men in a Boat:_
Harris let the sail down, and then we saw what had happened. We had
knocked those three old gentlemen off their chairs into a general heap at
the bottom of the boat, and they were now slowly and painfully sorting
themselves out from each other, and picking fish off themselves; and as
they worked, they cursed us - not with a common cursory curse, but with
long, carefully-thought-out, comprehensive curses, that embraced the
whole of our career, and went away into the distant future, and included
all our relations, and covered everything connected with us - good,
substantial curses.
--
================== http://www.alumni.caltech.edu/~teneyck ==================
Ross TenEyck Seattle, WA \ Light, kindled in the furnace of hydrogen;
ten...@alumni.caltech.edu \ like smoke, sunlight carries the hot-metal
Are wa yume? Soretomo maboroshi? \ tang of Creation's forge.
Endy9
news:8rZjb.627$Uz6...@newsread1.news.atl.earthlink.net...
>
> "Dorothy J Heydt" <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote in message
> news:HMwzs...@kithrup.com...
> > In article <azWjb.628$sG6...@newssvr14.news.prodigy.com>,
> > John H <chandin169*DON'TUSETHIS*@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > >
> > >"Mark Atwood" <m...@pobox.com> wrote in message
> > >news:m3u167n...@khem.blackfedora.com...
> > >> Peter Meilinger <mell...@bu.edu> writes:
> > >> >
> > >> > I've been known to use "Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick!" from
> > >> > time to time. I'm not sure where I got that one, but I know
> > >> > I didn't come up with it on my own.
> > >>
> > >> from the /Wildcards/ series.
> > >
> > >"Jesus Horseshoe Tapdancing Christ" from the Bureau 13 books for me. I
> > >still use that and "Taplinger Jones" (where's that from? book had a cat
> > >and battle armor in it) every so often.
> >
> > And a guy I know expands the H in "Jesus H. Christ" into
> > "Haploid."
>
is
> "Jesus, Mary and Joseph the Carpenter from Brooklyn Heights."
A Greek exchange student lived with me my junior year in high school. Your
comments remind me of his saying "Jesus Christ!" as a swear word, quickly
followed by "I don't know why I blame the man, it isn't his fault."
--
Dennis/Endy
http://home.comcast.net/~endymion91/
~Dancing us from darkest night is the rhythm of love
Powered on by the beating of hearts~
--
Endy9
Dorothy J Heydt
Kevin Wald <wa...@math.uconn.edu> wrote:
>Mark Atwood <m...@pobox.com> wrote in
>news:m3brsft...@khem.blackfedora.com:
>> how...@brazee.net writes:
>>> Of course, sometimes the "bad" words evolve.
>>> Piss was an euphemism that spawned Pee.
>
>> What was it a euphemism *for*?
>
>The two Anglo-Saxon (Old English) words I know of for urine
>are _hland_ and _micga_ (and their variants). So if you want
>to avoid the fancy French euphemism "piss", you can use their
>modern descendants, "lant" and "mig", the only drawback being
>that few will understand what you're talking about.
The (fairly) modern English was "mie". Did you ever come across
Cockayne's _Wortcraft, Leechdoms, and Starcunning_? I think I
have the title right. It's a mid-Victorian edition of several
Old English herbals and books of medicine (mostly translated from
Latin). Cockayne's attitude was, "if it was a word in Old
English, and it's ever appeared in any later dialect since, it's
a modern English word," and he used "mie" for "urinate" in
several places.
Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djh...@kithrup.com
>
Aaron J. Dinkin
> A Greek exchange student lived with me my junior year in high school. Your
> comments remind me of his saying "Jesus Christ!" as a swear word, quickly
> followed by "I don't know why I blame the man, it isn't his fault."
Sure it is. He took responsibility for everyone else's sins, right?
-Aaron J. Dinkin
Dr. Whom
Mark Atwood
> >
> >It's odd that the word "poop" has become acceptable. A 3 year old can tell
> >the world he's going to go poop. On TV. Dog Poop is OK. But shit isn't
> >OK unless you say it to mean something else. e.g. That is Bull Shit, or
> >That is B.S.
>
> And, of course, "frigging". Which has a technical meaning that would,
> if commonly understood, cause it to be rendered unsuitable as a
> euphemism for "fucking". For which it's not a true synonym in the
> first place.
There is "Felching Heck" in one of the John Constantin graphic novels,
put there because the editors would not let him say "Fucking Hell".
"Fetching" is not "fucking", it is a *more* "obscene" obscure
after-activity...
Del Cotter
Gene Ward Smith <psm...@svpal.org> said:
>djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
>>>I've been known to use "Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick!" from
>>>time to time. I'm not sure where I got that one, but I know
>>>I didn't come up with it on my own.
>>
>>There are a lot of variants on that, including the shorter
>>"Christ on a bike!"
>
>Also "Christ on a crutch!"
Where crutch = cross, rather than an aid to walking.
--
Del Cotter
Thanks to the recent fake Microsoft virus, I am currently rejecting all email
sent to d...@branta.demon.co.uk. Please send your email to del2 instead.
Cosmin Corbea
news:bmprrp$ddr$1...@reader1.panix.com...
> In article <9d67e55e.0310...@posting.google.com>,
> David Tate <dt...@ida.org> wrote:
> >The Basque character in Trevanian's novel _Shibumi_ had some nice
> >interjections, but the only one I can (mis?)remember at the moment is
> >"God's nipples!".
>
> "God's [body part]" was not unknown in the Middle Ages, as I recall.
> I think I picked up "God's teeth and toenails" from one of the early
> Plantagenets.
Or the French "ventrebleu", "corbleu" and "morbleu", which are sanitized
versions of "ventre de Dieu" ("God's belly"), "corps de Dieu" ("God's body")
and "mort de Dieu" - "God's death"
--
Regards,
Cosmin Corbea
Leif Magnar Kj|nn|y
You do know that this is not a made-up word, right?
--
Leif Kjønnøy, Geek of a Few Trades. http://www.pvv.org/~leifmk
Disclaimer: Do not try this at home.
Void where prohibited by law.
Batteries not included.
David Silberstein
Mark Atwood <m...@pobox.com> wrote:
>
>There is "Felching Heck" in one of the John Constantin graphic novels,
>
YM Neil Gaiman's /Books of Magic/, which does include John Constantine
as a character, who speaks the phrase.
>put there because the editors would not let him say "Fucking Hell".
IIRC, the full phrase was: "Blast. Darn. Felching Heck."
I only first heard of it because I read the /Books of Magic/
annotations. Who says comics aren't educational?
ftp://theory.lcs.mit.edu/pub/people/wald/books-of-magic/books-of-magic.2
p.33 panel 5: Report is that Gaiman originally wanted
Constantine simply to say, "Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.",
but Karen Berger vetoed the dialogue.
Karl M Syring
>
> A Greek exchange student lived with me my junior year in high school. Your
> comments remind me of his saying "Jesus Christ!" as a swear word, quickly
> followed by "I don't know why I blame the man, it isn't his fault."
The worst Greek swear word seems to be "hontromalakas",
although I am not sure about the spelling. I do not know,
what it means either.
Karl M. Syring
David Silberstein
Karl M Syring <syr...@email.com> wrote:
>
>The worst Greek swear word seems to be "hontromalakas",
>although I am not sure about the spelling. I do not know,
>what it means either.
>
[Google]
The word malakas derives from the ancient Greek word
"malthakos", which means "spoilt, well-used to luxuries
of life".
In modern Greek, the word malakas is used metaphorically
in everyday speech to define the individual that uses no
common sense, who instead repeats the same mistakes many
times over, while maintaining an attitude of
self-righteousness.
http://www.malakas.org/malakas.html
The page does not mention "hontro" as a prefix, but does
mention "arxi", which is no doubt means "arch" in the
same sense as "archangel" or "archbishop", and thus
corrsponds to "ueber".
"hontro" should probably be spelled "xontro", since "x"
is apparantly commonly used to transliterate "chi",
and Google does bring up hits on "xontromalakas". Alas,
they are all in Greek.
Dorothy J Heydt
In _Cyrano de Bergerac_ Cyrano and his buddies swear in the
Gascon dialect, "Mille dious! Mordious! Capdedious!
Pocapdedious!" which appears to be A thousand gods; Death of God;
Head of God; By the head of God. (I think.) In the same play
the Musketeers peacock about like a bunch of Dragaerans, which of
course makes sense; which leads me to the thought that Dragaerans
really don't swear very inventively. They swear by the Orb; and
some of them say "Cracks and Shards" like a bunch of Pernese; and
Khaavren and his friends swear by the Horse, a personal
reference. But unless I have misremembered, they don't have any
colorful oaths like "by Barlenn's scaly little testicles!" and
they really ought.
Dorothy J Heydt
Leif Magnar Kj|nn|y <lei...@pvv.ntnu.no> wrote:
>In article <cH%jb.982$6o1...@newssvr29.news.prodigy.com>,
>John H <chandin169*DON'TUSETHIS*@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>This reminds me of Red Dwarf; smeg, smeghead, smeg off, etc.
>
>You do know that this is not a made-up word, right?
I knew the word "smegma" when I was *four*years*old* because I
read my mother's well-thumbed copy of Dr. Spock (first edition),
and I'd read the passage where it explains that if your baby boy
is not circumcised, you need to clean it out. On finding it used
as a swear word, fifty-some years later, I was seriously bemused.
Karl M Syring
>
> [Google]
>
> The word malakas derives from the ancient Greek word
> "malthakos", which means "spoilt, well-used to luxuries
> of life".
>
> In modern Greek, the word malakas is used metaphorically
> in everyday speech to define the individual that uses no
> common sense, who instead repeats the same mistakes many
> times over, while maintaining an attitude of
> self-righteousness.
>
> http://www.malakas.org/malakas.html
>
> The page does not mention "hontro" as a prefix, but does
> mention "arxi", which is no doubt means "arch" in the
> same sense as "archangel" or "archbishop", and thus
> corrsponds to "ueber".
>
> "hontro" should probably be spelled "xontro", since "x"
> is apparantly commonly used to transliterate "chi",
> and Google does bring up hits on "xontromalakas". Alas,
> they are all in Greek.
Thank you, I could find both words in an alternative Odysey, written
in Greek: http://members.tripod.com/~pboys/history/odysseia.txt
Looks suspicious, and "malakia" and "malaka" are mentioned, too.
Karl M. Syring
phil hunt
>
>A somewhat stranger fate has befallen the Old English term
>for penis, which has been completely replaced in its original
>use by euphemisms and whimsical slang terms, but which
>nonetheless survives to this day and is not even particularly
>obscure.
Which is?
--
"It's easier to find people online who openly support the KKK than
people who openly support the RIAA" -- comment on Wikipedia
(My real email address would be <zen2...@zen.co.ku> if you added 275
to it and reversed the last two letters).
joy beeson
ten...@alumnae.caltech.edu (Ross TenEyck) wrote:
> I seem to recall a (short) fad, after "Spy Kids" came out, of kids
> saying, "Holy shiiiiiiiiitake mushrooms!"
Which reminds me of a song that probably came out of the
twenties:
Oh, ask your mother for fifty cents
To see the elephant climb the fence
The higher he climbs, the more you can see
Of his Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaas
tonishing powers.
Joy Beeson
--
http://home.earthlink.net/~joybeeson/ -- needlework
http://home.earthlink.net/~beeson_n3f/ -- Writers' Exchange
joy beeson at earthlink dot net
Ross TenEyck
>In article <cH%jb.982$6o1...@newssvr29.news.prodigy.com>,
>John H <chandin169*DON'TUSETHIS*@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>This reminds me of Red Dwarf; smeg, smeghead, smeg off, etc.
>You do know that this is not a made-up word, right?
This has come up before, and I've never been able to get a straight
answer.
"Smeg" would presumably be derived from "smegma," which is certainly
a real word about something unpleasant, and it has an appropriately
curse-wordy sound.
But is "smeg" actually used, in the real world, outside of Red Dwarf
fandom, as a curse word? If so, where? And how is it that I've never
heard it outside of Red Dwarf or people who picked it up from Red
Dwarf?
aRJay
>In article <cH%jb.982$6o1...@newssvr29.news.prodigy.com>,
>John H <chandin169*DON'TUSETHIS*@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>This reminds me of Red Dwarf; smeg, smeghead, smeg off, etc.
>
>You do know that this is not a made-up word, right?
>
IIRC.
--
aRJay
"In this great and creatorless universe, where so much beautiful has
come to be out of the chance interactions of the basic properties of
matter, it seems so important that we love one another."
- Lucy Kemnitzer
David Cowie
[Smeg]
>
> You do know that this is not a made-up word, right?
Yes, but what's so offensive about an Italian fridge company?
--
David Cowie david_cowie at lineone dot net
George Partlow
(snip)
> read my mother's well-thumbed copy of Dr. Spock (first edition),
> and I'd read the passage where it explains that if your baby boy
> is not circumcised, you need to clean it out. On finding it used
> as a swear word, fifty-some years later, I was seriously bemused.
My freshman roommate in college was fond of "Myakiznak!", which is
actually the name of a letter in the Russian alphabet, but has the
right _sound_, if you see what I mean.
George
John Johnson
"Mark Atwood" <m...@pobox.com> wrote in message
news:m3fzhrt...@khem.blackfedora.com...
> tm...@panix.com (Timothy McDaniel) writes:
> >
> > Wasn't there a bit in _Starship Troopers_ where Juan Rico admires the
> > abuse from Sgt. Zim, wishing he'd had Zim on his high-school debate
> > team, noting that he went on for several minutes without repetition or
> > obscenity?
>
> apparently have an "unofficial" cussing contest. The rules are
> basically the same as the real rules imposed on DIs in their job,
> i.e., "no obscenity, no blasphemy, and no euphonic euphamisms for
> them".
>
> I've read transcripts. They are, franking, fucking impressive.
And where might one find one of these transcripts. (For purely educational
purposes of course.)
--
John Johnson
John Johnson
"John H" <chandin169*DON'TUSETHIS*@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:cH%jb.982$6o1...@newssvr29.news.prodigy.com...
>
>
> This reminds me of Red Dwarf; smeg, smeghead, smeg off, etc.
My friends and I tend to use these quite a bit, but now that I've done a bit
of research and learned the definition of smegma, I'm not so sure that I
want to continue using them. Yech.
--
John Johnson
John Johnson
"Eloise Mason (nee Beltz-Decker)" <elo...@ripco.com> wrote in message
news:Pine.GSO.4.58.0310171418340.24663@shell2...
> Also, during her early-eighties stint as a general contractor
> (coordinator of people who build houses and structures, for those not
> familiar with the jargon) and carpenter, my mother had to come up with a
> way to swear that would nonetheless maintain something of a respectful
> distance between her and the guys -- a chick who swears a blue streak is,
> well, perhaps fair game for other things, or was then, there, and in that
> company. She carefully trained herself until even in extremis what
> exploded from her lips was an angry, "FOR-nicating hippo-POT-ami!!"
Now this I like. A good curse needs to roll of the tongue, and this has a
certain eloquence about it that I like.
--
John Johnson
Mark Atwood
> "John H" <chandin169*DON'TUSETHIS*@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:cH%jb.982$6o1...@newssvr29.news.prodigy.com...
>
> of research and learned the definition of smegma, I'm not so sure that I
> want to continue using them. Yech.
Look up "felch" and "squick". They make "smeg" seem positively tame.
David T. Bilek
>"John Johnson" <smileyman20...@hotmail.com> writes:
>> "John H" <chandin169*DON'TUSETHIS*@yahoo.com> wrote in message
>> news:cH%jb.982$6o1...@newssvr29.news.prodigy.com...
>>
>> My friends and I tend to use these quite a bit, but now that I've done a bit
>> of research and learned the definition of smegma, I'm not so sure that I
>> want to continue using them. Yech.
>
>Look up "felch" and "squick". They make "smeg" seem positively tame.
Don't forget "santorum."
-David
Brian Love
(in message <m3fzhrt...@khem.blackfedora.com>):
> Apparently, here in the real world, the US military's DI schools
> apparently have an "unofficial" cussing contest. The rules are
> basically the same as the real rules imposed on DIs in their job,
> i.e., "no obscenity, no blasphemy, and no euphonic euphamisms for
> them".
>
> I've read transcripts. They are, franking, fucking impressive.
URL?
--
Brian Love
Freelance Otaku
Mike Schilling
"Dorothy J Heydt" <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote in message
news:HMyFr...@kithrup.com...
> Dragaerans
> really don't swear very inventively. They swear by the Orb; and
> some of them say "Cracks and Shards" like a bunch of Pernese; and
> Khaavren and his friends swear by the Horse, a personal
> reference.
Others do as well (e.g. the Emperor before he hears about the treaty eith
the Easterners). This may simply be Paarfi nodding, of course.
Kimberley Verburg
>Back to the main topic: there was a Poul Anderson story, I think,
>where someone, van Rijn I presume, used something like "dood und
>undergang", which I guess means "death and damnation", presumably in
>Dutch. Does anyone have the correct spelling, a recollection of this,
>or whatnot?
I haven't read the story but it's spelt "dood en ondergang". You were
close with "damnation", but "death and doom" would be better. I can't
think where Poul Anderson picked this up, it's not something I've ever
heard used. It might just be a very old phrase.
--
Kimberley Verburg
k...@lspace.org
Lois Tilton
>
> And, of course, "frigging". Which has a technical meaning that would,
> if commonly understood, cause it to be rendered unsuitable as a
> euphemism for "fucking". For which it's not a true synonym in the
> first place.
There is always "farking".
--
LT
John H
"Leif Magnar Kj|nn|y" <lei...@pvv.ntnu.no> wrote in message
news:bmr3of$du1$1...@tyfon.itea.ntnu.no...
> In article <cH%jb.982$6o1...@newssvr29.news.prodigy.com>,
> John H <chandin169*DON'TUSETHIS*@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> >This reminds me of Red Dwarf; smeg, smeghead, smeg off, etc.
>
> You do know that this is not a made-up word, right?
I do NOW! <grin> Rasfw is informative, this I knew, but... smegma,
felching... TMI!
john
how...@brazee.net
On 17-Oct-2003, "Michael S. Schiffer" <msch...@condor.depaul.edu> wrote:
> >> Piss was an euphemism that spawned Pee.
>
> > What was it a euphemism *for*?
>
> > "Urine" doesn't sound very, well, Anglo-Saxon.
>
> The OED doesn't say, but agrees that it was a euphemism (and not
> Anglo-Saxon itself-- English got it from French a couple of centuries
> after the Norman Conquest).
Maybe it was by just being - my spelling is too bad to find the word in the
dictionary - by sounding like the action.
Dreamer
that one quite a bit.
It's a spell from Infocom's game "Enchanter," the first sequel to the Zork
games. It means, "Cause to give off light." In some of the "reviewer
comments" included with the game was the complaint, "I Frotzed my girlfriend
and now I can't get any sleep." This struck early-adolescent me as the
height of hilarity.
It probably tells you something about sadly far-past-adolesecent me that I
still find it pretty darn funny.
I don't know if "Dangermouse" counts as SF or not, but my wife frequently
uses Penfold's favorite, "Crumbs!" I know that's not original to him, but
that's where she got it.
D
Dreamer
TenEyck" <ten...@alumnae.caltech.edu> wrote:
> Default User <first...@boeing.com.invalid> writes:
>> how...@brazee.net wrote:
>
>>> I remember reading books where the hero stood back to admire how good the
>>> swearing was of some side-kick.
>
>> Some story I read (SF even) had something like, "a display of simple and
>> compound swearing that would have impressed a Terrestrial stevedore."
>
> Well, there's always _Three Men in a Boat:_
>
> Harris let the sail down, and then we saw what had happened. We had
> knocked those three old gentlemen off their chairs into a general heap at
> the bottom of the boat, and they were now slowly and painfully sorting
> themselves out from each other, and picking fish off themselves; and as
> they worked, they cursed us - not with a common cursory curse, but with
> long, carefully-thought-out, comprehensive curses, that embraced the
> whole of our career, and went away into the distant future, and included
> all our relations, and covered everything connected with us - good,
> substantial curses.
In Patricia McKillip's "Riddle-Master" series, at one point the heroine
tells a story about the Hundred Curses that a wizard pronounced on someone
who'd offended him, each one of which compared some part of him to a pig,
and made that part actually *become* like a pig, and so at the end the
fellow *was* a pig. Later someone offends *her* and she gives him boar's
bristles all over his body without even thinking about it by saying one of
the curses at him.
That sounds like a very systematic approach to cursing to me.
D
Dreamer
"Cosmin Corbea" <cosminc@no_spam.canada.com.invalid> wrote:
> Or the French "ventrebleu", "corbleu" and "morbleu", which are sanitized
> versions of "ventre de Dieu" ("God's belly"), "corps de Dieu" ("God's body")
> and "mort de Dieu" - "God's death"
ISTR that the venerable "Zounds!" is a contraction of "God's wounds!"
D
Dreamer
e5dfe6d0.03101...@posting.google.com, "George Partlow"
<pricer...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> My freshman roommate in college was fond of "Myakiznak!", which is
> actually the name of a letter in the Russian alphabet, but has the
> right _sound_, if you see what I mean.
Ah, there's another one - "nyekulturnay," as Hilda and Zeb pronounce it. (I
don't speak Russian, but I think it's actually "nyet kulturnay," as close as
you can do it without Cyrillic. Feel free to correct me.) I use that one in
pretty much what I understand to be the correct meaning, which to an
American is a joke but to a Russian, at least it used to was, is a rather
nasty insult. It's an insult when I use it, though, even though I'm an
American. Who said *I* had to be consistent?
D
David Silberstein
Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote:
>Which leads me to the thought that Dragaerans
>really don't swear very inventively. They swear by the Orb; and
>some of them say "Cracks and Shards" like a bunch of Pernese; and
>Khaavren and his friends swear by the Horse, a personal
>reference. But unless I have misremembered, they don't have any
>colorful oaths like "by Barlenn's scaly little testicles!" and
>they really ought.
>
Vlad, at least, swears by "the blood on Verra's floor" in /Phoenix/,
and by "Verra's tits" (forgetting momentarily that the pair of them
were right nearby) in /Issola/.
Perhaps Paarfi wished to not portray his characters as being
excessivly vulgar. Aerich, at least, would never even *think*
of being vulgar.
Keith Morrison
>>Wasn't there a bit in _Starship Troopers_ where Juan Rico admires the
>>abuse from Sgt. Zim, wishing he'd had Zim on his high-school debate
>>team, noting that he went on for several minutes without repetition or
>>obscenity?
>
> Apparently, here in the real world, the US military's DI schools
> apparently have an "unofficial" cussing contest. The rules are
> basically the same as the real rules imposed on DIs in their job,
> i.e., "no obscenity, no blasphemy, and no euphonic euphamisms for
> them".
>
> I've read transcripts. They are, franking, fucking impressive.
I used to be good at it. I once reduced a recruit to near-tears
on the parade square without raising my voice, swearing or blatantly
insulting him.
The sergeant who happened to be marking my performance at the time
(the drill instructors were evaluated for their performance as much
as the recruits) payed me the supreme compliment by mentioning the
performance to the regimental sergeant-major of the college. One
of the moments I'm rather proud of.
--
Keith
Christopher J. Henrich
<wth...@godzilla5.acpub.duke.edu> wrote:
> djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) writes:
>
> > In article <bmp6l8$90a$4...@news3.bu.edu>,
> > Peter Meilinger <mell...@bu.edu> wrote:
> > >
> > >I've been known to use "Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick!" from
> > >time to time. I'm not sure where I got that one, but I know
> > >I didn't come up with it on my own.
> >
> > There are a lot of variants on that, including the shorter
> > "Christ on a bike!" Compare Norwegian (I think it's Norwegian)
> > "Vorherre till hest!" "Our Lord on a horse!" Sounds as if the
> > Lord's name might have been changed at some point and the horse
> > used to have more legs.
> >
> > Modern variants include "Mohammed on a mo-ped!"
> >
>
> "Jesus H Christ on a Harley-Davidson" was oft used
> by Spinrad (in "Bug Jack Barron", I think). I heard
> people say that at the time, but haven't since the
> 1970s.
>
According to a cousing of mine, who went to Oberlin in the 1960's, the
fashionable cuss there was "Jesus Christ on a pregnant bicycle," the
last two words meaning a small motor scooter.
--
Chris Henrich
"Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo."
-- H. G. Wells
Lee DeRaud
ObPopMusic: "...Moses on a motorbike..." - Tears For Fears, 1993
Lee
Jim Cambias
Henrich" <chen...@monmouth.com> wrote:
The wonderful comic book Sam & Max: Freelance Police included the immortal
line "Jesus, Mary and Joseph in a flaming birchbark canoe," which
occasionally turns up in my own vocabulary.
Cambias
Dorothy J Heydt
That's right. And the still-sometimes-touchy "Bloody" is a
contraction of "By Our Lady."
Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djh...@kithrup.com
H. E. Taylor
I first read 'Jesus H. Christ on a pogo stick' somewhere
in a [Henry] Miller opus.
This is, btw, a perfect example of a thread that deserves
a Summary...
Some here may find Maledicta of interest.
[See: <http://www.sonic.net/maledicta/>]
<selah>
-het
--
"Jesus saves, Moses invest, Mohammed pumps oil & Buddha just grooves."
Energy Alternatives: http://www.autobahn.mb.ca/~het/energy/energy.html
H.E. Taylor http://www.autobahn.mb.ca/~het/
Michael S. Schiffer
>...
> That's right. And the still-sometimes-touchy "Bloody" is a
> contraction of "By Our Lady."
It may be so. On the other hand, the OED thinks "there is good
reason to think that it was at first a reference to the habits of the
‘bloods’ or aristocratic rowdies of the end of the 17th and beginning
of the 18th c. The phrase ‘bloody drunk’ was apparently = ‘as drunk
as a blood’ (cf. ‘as drunk as a lord’) ... There is no ground for the
notion that ‘bloody’, offensive as from associations it now is to
ears polite, contains any profane allusion ...." (Given the
qualifiers, I don't know that it really rules out other possible
origins, but I offer it as an alternative.)
Mike
--
Michael S. Schiffer, LHN, FCS
msch...@condor.depaul.edu
J.B. Moreno
> In the same play the Musketeers peacock about like a bunch of Dragaerans,
> which of course makes sense; which leads me to the thought that Dragaerans
> really don't swear very inventively. They swear by the Orb; and some of
> them say "Cracks and Shards" like a bunch of Pernese; and Khaavren and his
> friends swear by the Horse, a personal reference. But unless I have
> misremembered, they don't have any colorful oaths like "by Barlenn's scaly
> little testicles!" and they really ought.
Not really. They don't look on the gods (IMO) in a way as to make that
likely -- it'd be like swearing by Babe Ruth's beer belly.
--
JBM
"Everything is futile." -- Marvin of Borg
Andrew Plotkin
> I just remembered another one which sounds dirty but isn't: "Frotz." I use
> that one quite a bit.
>
> It's a spell from Infocom's game "Enchanter," the first sequel to the Zork
> games. It means, "Cause to give off light."
Ah, good for you. I use that too. Been doing it long enough that I can
do it reflexively, even.
--Z
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
* Make your vote count. Get your vote counted.
Andrew Plotkin
"By Babe Ruth's bulbous beer belly!"
I don't know, I think one could make a go of that.