I've lumped them together after reading somewhere that they're stored together in the brain (along with song lyrics and nursery rhymes.) That struck me as rather profound, although probably not in any specific way.

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Anyway, more to the point, swearing in sci-fi: I'm just using the normal language at the moment, with a view to replacing it later. I want to replace it because using 21st century British profanity is not particularly indicative of my story's society. And reading it sounds --not daft, or inappropriate at all, just unnatural.

There are inherent dangers in making these up though - most attempts sound ridiculous. I can only think of one 'artificial' swearword that didn't make me scoff, and that was 'frack' from Battlestar Galatica. And even that caught me out a few times, completely distracting me from the dialogue.

What are all your thoughts? I'm not bothered about censors or anything because I don't expect this to ever end up on TV. From a purely narrative perspective, what' are your opinions?

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On to my second. My story involves a lot of religion, which at the moment is formulated in mostly Judeo-Christian language. I want to change this as well, for the same reasons as listed above. And, also, I'm being rather harsh to the poor religion - and I don't want any Judeo-Christians out there thinking I bear them any ill-will.

My question is, how do I go about making this substitution not sound just like a transparent copy? Ie, the exact same sentences with all the names hurriedly changed? I'd much prefer to end up with a completely distinct, esoteric religion that doesn't instantly point to any political targets.

Interesting topic. I can see you're going about this in a very thoughtful way.

I think I'd also avoid just substituting a made-up word. This has been done on several tv shows: "Frack" on "Battlestar Galactica"; "Frell" on "Farscape", and "Frag" on "Babylon 5" -- all used exactly as the word "fuck" is used in modern swearing. (Note that the first two shows were set in a totally separate culture where they wouldn't actually be speaking English or any other Earth language; only "Babylon 5" had people speaking a future version of English.)

It's been a long time since somebody actually invented a new swear word. What tends to happen instead is that existing words are used in a new way. For instance, the all-purpose "fuck" has been around for many centuries, used in its literal sense. As far as I know, it didn't start being used as a rude intensifier and general curse until the 20th century. In general, Western cursing has shifted from blasphemy to obscenity and scatology. The really old expletives all have religious roots; "Zounds!" comes from "God's wounds". People used to swear by "God's feet", "'sblood", or anything else associated with the Crucifixion.

Come to think of it, since religion is important in your story, maybe you should have your characters curse by using clever blasphemies based on their theology?

On "Firefly" (which became the movie "Serenity"), the civilization was one in which Chinese culture was dominant - so the characters always swore in Chinese. Which was awesome, because they could say some pretty racy stuff on television, and since it was in Chinese, it was not censored.

The one English "made up" swear word they used was "gorram" instead of "goddamn". Similar to "frack", I guess. Not sure if you'd want to use that, since that is pretty much associated with Firefly/Serenity, but I thought knowing about it (and the trick of using the other culture's swear words) might help...

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NaNoWriMo '07 Winner - Twelfth Night
ScriptFrenzy '08 - HeroCorp

"You just keep on trying 'til you run out of cake."
--Ending song, Portal

Good call about the mixing religion and swearing. It does actually make much more sense for a highly devout society to do this, now I come to think of it.

However, the problem persists: If I hear someone say 'gorram' (or even 'zounds') I find it more often than not just sounds plain daft. Any impact the word should have is lost instantly, and usually it serves to distract the viewer from the rest of the dialogue also.

jennafoo: It's a good idea, but the society I'm writing about is particularly monocultural, and should they ever make contact with foreigners, they're likely to burn them as witches. So, it's very unlikely they'd be bilingual^_^

But, supposing I go with religious curses. Any ideas how to address the second problem? Ie, a more creative way to make a new religion than simply replacing every instance of 'God' with 'Allah', or 'Xenu' or 'Garfield'.

I think you're being overcritical of curse words like "zounds" and "gorram". Because you're a writer, you're more likely to pay attention to how people say things. Your average viewer, though, will hear words like that and just go along with it. The character's used it as a curse, therefore, it is a curse. It might be jarring the first couple times, but they get used to it pretty quickly.

On the topic of making up a religion... I've actually done it a few times. I started out by trying to come up with the creation mythology. How do the characters believe the universe began? Where did life come from? It doesn't matter if what they believe is true. Once you've decided that, figure out how they would refer to that creator or creators. How would they revere him/her/it/them? What form would worship take?

In Judeo-Christian phylosophy, you can't speak God's name, except in prayer. That's where the practice of calling the creator "God" (with a capitol G) comes from. Apply that to your characters. How would they refer to their creator? Would it be all right to use his/her/its/their name or would they come up with some sort of euphamism?
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If they're particularly devout people, they would probably try to avoid saying their God's name, so using it might be considered a curse in and of itself.

Using made-up swear words can feel kind of lazy, so I'd advise against it. If the religion has any certain events (like the crucifixion), they could reference that briefly as a swear. Or if they regard certain objects as sacred, that could be used as well.

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Script Frenzy 08: Haunted.

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TOBIAS: The EMF meter is going crazy!
KADIN: It's not the only one.

Suddenly I'm tempted to go the other way, and have 'fuck' used as a non-swearword. So it just inoffensively means 'to tap/penetrate' as it used to.

On a somewhat related note, there was an old webcomic called Adventurers! in which every curse word was replaced by spoon, fork, knife, and even utensil a few times(a reference to the spoony bard line in Final Fantasy 4). It actually went over quite well, and it came to be part of what made the comic what it was.

The point to all of this is that you can use whatever you want as a swear, as long as it seems to fit in with your story and becomes used enough to not seem out of place or unaccepted by your characters. (In case you missed that, if your characters are happy with it, your audience should be too.)

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I just don't have enough of it."
-Anwyn, muse and friend

I love the spoony bard! :)

This is a good point. My favorite "knife/fork" swearword is when SpongeBob yells "BARNACLES!!!"

NaNoWriMo '07 Winner - Twelfth Night
ScriptFrenzy '08 - HeroCorp

"You just keep on trying 'til you run out of cake."
--Ending song, Portal