Southern Writer

Imagine you're writing a story that takes place in a world that has no God, or gods, or saints. What do you do with exclamations like "Oh gosh!" (derived from "Oh God") or "Jeez!" (derived from "Jesus!")? And - oh god - what do you do with curses and swear words? If your characters can't say "Oh my god", "hell no", or "damn" because there are no gods to damn anyone to hell... what are your options?

Here is a list for inspiration

In general, non-religious curse and swear words refer to local cultural taboos.

Many languages swear by referring to cleanliness: dirty, sweaty, sticky, smelly etc. This includes things you do on the toilet.

Some languages, like Dutch, use diseases as curses and insults. For example, someone nasty/bothersome might be called a "cancer sufferer" in Dutch. These swear words are combinations of (derivates of) typhus, cholera, and cancer.

Societal hierarchy and family trees, mainly the inferior positions like a bastard (seen as inferior in the family tree) or a derogatory word that refers to lower class people (seen as inferior in that society).

On the other hand, you could insult a highly valued member of the other person's family, like their mother, or of their society, like their Queen/Emperor.

Sexual taboos, often implying someone (or their mother) is more sexually active than society accepts of them.

Calling someone the word for someone's genitalia refers to the same taboo.

How do you apply this to your language?

You could use explicit/taboo words as ... :

... an intensifier: "It was a shit-hot day."

... a negative adjective: "This is a shitty job."

... an insulting noun: "This journey is shit."

Or try to be creative and combine different taboos for a multi-hit offense. My favorite one is the Spanish "I shit in your mother's milk", which combines insulting the other person's mother, the taboo of bodily functions, and the taboo of cleanliness.

During my research I came across this article, which contains a number of concrete examples from all over the world you can draw inspiration from.

And on a less offensive note, you could always make up your own equivalent of "Merlin's beard!", "Great Scott!", or "For Pete's sake!" (Pete, by the way, is a catholic reference: Pete is Saint Peter.)

I hope this was helpful. Don’t hesitate to ask me any questions, and happy writing!

Follow me for more writing advice, or check out my other writing tips here. New topics to write advice about are also always appreciated.

Tag list below the cut. If you like to be added to or removed from the list, let me know.

And if you come up with creative curses, feel free to add them in the comments :)

Defend minority languages.

Defend “economically useless” languages.

“WHAT THE FUCK STAY AWAY FROM THE ROCKS.”