Non-blasphemous, non-expletive exclamations

That sounds just like my high school years!

 

"GREAT Googa-Mooga!" - Grandpa

 

Like ManOrAstroMan, my experience with religious kids never indicated to me they were any better than the rest of us. Though my experience is with small-town Southern Baptist and since you used 'priest,' I'm going to assume Catholic. They would have said 'Jesus' just as quickly as the rest of us. An interesting image that came to mind is the daughter of the reverend at the swimming pool wearing a small, white bikini with a small heart cut out on one breast, over one ass cheek, and just to the northeast of well ... Teenage memories (-:

Anyway, my favorite has to be Penny from Big Bang 'Holy Crap on a Cracker'.

 

I like "fire truck." Starts with F, ends with K. Perfect.

 

Frack seems popular in solving this problem. Then there is the Southern approach. "Bless your heart" which can have a wide variety of means in subtext, while being polite on the surface.

 

I'd go with "Judas Priest" myself. That's how the band got its name.

 

I work for the Evangelical channel sometimes, and there used to be a program with two hosts. One was younger and "hip," and the other quite tradtional. Because we as a crew are facilitated by a non-religious company, we're asked to be respectful in our use of words that are really important to get a production running.
I've learned that most curses are bastardized version of blasphemous curses, so a lot of what you'd think is okay is actually still not, depending on how close to God you are. One host would accept "darn," the other would berate you for it.

I've also spoken to a Latter Day Saints member, and she told me her father often used "by God's hooks," or indeed "gadzooks." While a bodkin is an arrow-tip, as far as I know, I guess it could take the place of a hook for this purpose.
She did note that "God's hooks" is a top-tier curse, so there needs to be something serious to curse.

I'm definitely gonna start using this. People will probably think I'm rocking out instead of pissed, but that might be a nice change of pace anyway.

 

I had an Orthodox priest who doubled as a handyman working on my house and whenever he found a problem or hammered his thumb or something he would cry out, "O Holy Spirit!" It was funny.

 

I'm a fan of made up exclamations, whether they involve profanity or not, like "Son of a goat licker!" or "Oh, rat balls!" or "Holy snot lob!"

I also like "gall darn it," "criminitly" and "what in tarnation."

Butters from South Park says, "Oh, hamburgers." And it's adorable.

 

That made me think of Three Amigos.
"Son of a motherless goat!"

And because the internet got hold of it, it now apparently means son of Satan, because context is for bitches..

 

I always liked "Well shucky-durn!"

 

I just got off the phone with my seventy-eight-year-old dad, and he used two I grew up hearing and still love. I hadn't thought of either in a while, and I'm immediately going to work these into my WIP that takes place in West Texas in 1972.
"Golly bum!" You have to elongate the "O" into about three beats to show utter incredulity.
and
"That was the durndest thing I ever saw." Takes the place of "craziest." Alternative version would be "darndest," but you have to agree, "durndest" is superior, lol.

 

If the character is Korean, try aigoo. "Heck" is cute, too. I know a youtuber who would say "what the blin?" A blin being a thin pancake.

 

Oh, dear. *laughs* Why does this remind me oh-so-much of "GREAT GOOGLY-MOOGLY!" A Zappa expression. (Look up "Nanook Rubs It" by Frank Zappa -- and also "Genius in France" by Weird Al Yankovic, which is Weird Al's tribute to Zappa, and also a genius work of art).

Speaking of which, I'm guessing someone must have this as a ringtone -- because the other day, while I was in line at the grocery store, what do I suddenly hear but Weird Al warbling:

Entre nous it's very true,
the room temperature's higher than my IQ;
but they love me more than Gerard Depardieu ---
How did this happen?! I don't have a clue!

Meanwhile, someone was desperately fiddling with their phone trying to turn it off. And while everyone was staring in confusion, I was trying desperately not to laugh ... and not succeeding. (P.S. I nearly died laughing).

As for unusual sweary exclamations ... how about:

- Dot-dash it! (Especially good if your character is a Morse code enthusiast)

- A character tries to power up an electronic device. But it fails. So he mutters, while grabbing a hammer ... Ah, ye ole percussive maintenance!

- Well, falafel me! (An expression of surprise or shock)

- Garn, ya useless cookie! (An expression of encouragement, often directed at a car. Frequently while holding a tree branch)

And the most colloquial of all Australian swears ...

- Strike me roan, mate! Strewth I'm worried about Darleen -- stone the flamin' crows!

Hope you find these useful.

 

For what it's worth, this has come up in my Christian romantic suspense series.

My female MC, a lifelong (Presbyterian) Christian, uses "Blast!" or "Blast it!" as her go-to swear. Being classically-educated, she also resorts to "O Domine!" This is simply Latin for "O Lord!" but having removed the term into a non-English language, she feels comfortable saying it (who ever said people were consistent?). At one critical point, she erupts into a full-blown "G-d damn it!" which the MMC remarks on as being out of her character.

With him it's more complicated. He becomes a Christian towards the end of the first-in-series (yeah, it's a trope; sue me) and in Book 2 has to clean up his language. I've got him going with "Oh, rats!" and "Rot it all!" but I'm not 100% convinced by it. But he's a middle-class professional, so it's not like he's a truck driver or a stevedore who'd be expected to utter something a lot more fierce.

There's a supporting character, a Cuban-American, also a Christian, whose favorite swear is "¡Ay mi madre!" I started out with "¡Ay carumba!" but apparently that's more a Mexican thing and they don't say it much in Cuba.

As for my German villains, I give them mostly-translated versions of German epithets and curse words, like "you sack of dung!" and "the Devil!" Some swears, I happily leave untranslated. If you don't know what "Scheiss'!" means, look it up.

And "arschgeige." I really like "arschgeige."

 

Hmm -- A long time ago, I came across the expression "¡Híjole!", which I'm not sure about. I think it's Mexican-Spanish, and that "Madre de Dios!" is Colombian-Spanish. But I'm not sure.

Does anyone know?

I'm also not sure about how "sweary" or otherwise "¡Híjole!" is. Some websites say that it's simply an expression of surprise or desperation, and means anything from "Oh my goodness" to "I'm very afraid". But other websites insist that, although this is not a filthy expression, it isn't exactly nice and I should be careful where I say it.

Does anyone know what the truth is?

Also -- ahh, yes! Thanks to Sir Terry Pratchett's books starring Tiffany Aching and the Nac Mac Feegles, I've learned a few swear words from Scotland (chiefly Dundee) -- such as:

Crivens! -- an expression that could mean anything from "What a frightening development" to "I've lost my temper and there's going to be a fight". It depends on context.

Scunner -- an unpleasant person.

Scuggins -- a VERY unpleasant person. Murderers and such fall into this category.

So, if your character says, "Ach, awa' with 'ee, ya wee scunner!", he is generally (and very politely) cursing you and telling you to ... well ... sod off. (In lieu of a filthier word). Ahem.

On the other hand, if your character says, "Aye, that scuggins is reet killer" ... well ... guess. (But first run away. No, not that way! Urrrbbbpph ... too late).

 

I remember when I was a kid seeing old men and women who were Christians and were unbelievably judgmental and harsh toward some people, and extremely racist. And I mean, they considered themselves good Christians. People are people, and some belief systems lend themselves to a sense of righteous indignation and superiority (and they're not all religions). That doesn't mean everyone in the denomination is like that of course. People are people. Different churches breed diffferent mentalities. And some people, whether Christian, Muslim, Jewish, or atheist, are good kind souls who try to love everyone.

 

I think that's a bit more of an East coast thing. I don't really get that out here, and most certainly didn't get that sort of speech from them when I lived in the North.

 

Obviously. But I know a lot of Lutheran pastors in the North. Might just be a Lutheran thing, really.

 

Shoot, Sheesh, Sugar, Fudge, Josephat, Heavens to Murgatroyd, and "What in the name of MIKE?"