When done right, the poetry of cursing with a few well-placed four-letter words is a thing of beauty to behold. However, sometimes profanity can’t be used, whether it’s because you’re at a family function, on holy ground, or trying to get a PG-rating from the MPAA. That’s when people, especially screenwriters, have to get creative in their verbiage and utilize some alternative words that can sub in for the swears.
Burger Fiction has produced this video compiling some of the best that cinema has to offer of people cursing without actually using dirty words. Inventing new ways of basically saying “fuck” and “asshole” without saying those particular naughty terms can lead to great fun and classic exchanges, like those in The Empire Strikes Back or Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox (which opens the video). So next time someone is deserving of being cussed out, but can’t for obvious reasons, go with some of these alternate phrasings. Besides, they may just respect the correct usage of “scruffy-looking nerf herder.”