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I have a habit of cussing a bit. I don't wanna use cute words for filthy words. I wanna use polite sounding words, that mean the same as the filthy sounding cuss words.

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  • Examples? Of the cuss words I mean. It will help us suggest a polite alternative specific to the word.
    – Tushar Raj
    Jun 25, 2015 at 7:42
  • You might want to use "Oedipus" for one of the worst cusses in the English Language: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oedipus_complex
    – user11752
    Jun 25, 2015 at 10:21
  • I'm kind of fond of "Sith".
    – Hot Licks
    Jun 25, 2015 at 13:18

2 Answers 2

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"Cuss" words have percussive metaphorical force, so to speak. There are no polite meaning words to replace them almost by definition. If you want to use non-vernacular words, they may possibly sound more polite, but they either (1) will not mean the same thing or (2) they will make you sound affected.

  1. Calling someone a penis is not the same thing as calling him a prick.
  2. Saying someone is full of excrement instead of full of shit sounds somewhat silly.

Mark Twain was notoriously foul-mouthed, and after a particular tirade, he reported that his wife repeated his rant, cuss word for cuss word to embarrass him. He said, "You got the words right, Livy, but you don't know the tune." Perhaps you, like Livy Clemens, should stick with temperate language.

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  • Gotta say, I really enjoyed reading this one, very droll. +1
    – user98990
    Jun 25, 2015 at 9:18
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I wanna use polite sounding words, that mean the same as the filthy sounding cuss words.

Actually, in English, you'll more often encounter minced oaths instead of using "less foul" synonyms.

Minced oaths are a sub-group of euphemisms used to avoid swearing when expressing surprise or annoyance. If you hit your thumb with a hammer when great aunt Edith is in the room what do you say? It's probably going to be a minced oath. Shakespeare might have resorted to 'gadzooks' (God's hooks - referring to the nails in the cross), we might try 'shoot' or 'freaking heck'.

The core idea is that you pick a word that is very similar. Not in meaning but in general word structure (shit/shoot, fuck/fudge).
While their actual meaning is completely different from the original swear word, it's still recognized as one because of the context in which it is used.

Some examples:

  • Instead of "shit!", you wouldn't say "excrement!" (what you're looking for), but rather "shoot!" (minced oath. Different word, different meaning, but so similar to "shit" that it's still recognizable as "polite swearing").
  • "To fuck something up" = "To fudge something up"
  • "Fucking" = "Freaking"
  • "Fucking" = "Frakking" (if you're a Battlestar Galactica fan)
  • ...

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