Average Jane’s Kid-Safe Cussing

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Pharmgirl reports that her daughter is starting to repeat bad words she hears from her dad. Apparently Pharmgirl’s husband lacks a ready list of substitute curse words upon which he can draw as needed. As a public service, I’m presenting my list of all the kid-friendly expletives I can think of.

Shoot
Darn or darnit
Dang or dangit
Dagnabit (if you don’t mind sounding like Yosemite Sam)
Horse pucky or horse hockey (bull may be substituted for horse)
Blast (my grandfather used this one around us a lot, "Oh, blast!")
Bother (another one from the grandparents)
Heck
Ticked off

I would argue against introducing any F-word variations to the kiddies, but if you’re on a roll and you need to halt yourself before the bomb drops, there’s always:

Fudge
Frickin’, Freakin’, Friggin’ or Flippin’ (the last "g" makes them far too formal, I think).
Effing (but you kind of had to be planning that one)

Then there are the lengthier phrases that you’ll feel stupid saying, but may save you if you need them:

What in the Sam Hill?
Son of a biscuit (or biscuit-eater)
Son of a gun

Some truly ridiculous curse word substitutions come into play as dubbed-over dialogue when movies are aired on network television. Carlo says, "Possibly my favorite curse, after translation for TV, comes from Bruce Willis in ‘Die Hard’ where the TV version, says, ‘Yippee Ki Yeah – Kemo Sabe!’"

My all-time favorite was from a Richard Pryor movie where the same oft-used compound word was dubbed repeatedly as "melon picker."

Did I leave anything out? What are your toothless cuss words of choice around the little ones? What are your favorite dubbed substitutions on TV?

Comments

8 responses to “Average Jane’s Kid-Safe Cussing”

June 9, 2005

Huts

Our son is 2, he repeats everything we say. So we came up with a few of our own. Son of a Snitch, Ricklefritz (my mom said it growing up), Frick, frack, and Holy Heck. Of course he repeats Dammit all the time, so we have a little work to do.

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June 9, 2005

Stacie

My husband stops just short of the swear word in the “Son of a” phrases. But nevery fear, the five-year-old was able to fill it in for him. Quite proudly too, I might add.
I tend to say, “What the” when around kids and fill in the appropriate swear word when they aren’t around. I’ve never heard either of them saying “what the” so I dont’ think that they yet realize that I’m sort of swearing.

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June 9, 2005

cj

A favorite of a co-worker is “shucky darn”.

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June 9, 2005

Rozanne

Great post! Are your grandparents British by any chance? I don’t often here “blast” or “bother” this side of the Atlantic–wish I did.
My mom was fond of saying “son of a sea cook”
from time to time.

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June 9, 2005

Joy DJ

I’ve got a couple to add to your list….
“Hop E Lop Lop,” (way back from camp days) and “Fiddle-dee-dee.” Almost forgot….”son of a bee’s nest.” This is kinda fun.

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June 9, 2005

Prahagirl

I get experience with this almost everyday in my line of work. I teach preschool and kindergarten in a parochial school and we get a lot of kids coming in saying “what the…” and “darn” etc. We discourage this because these words sound so much like the actual bad words. I know that a lot of times the kids don’t really know what they are saying, however, when they (or I) am excited about something here are a few that we use (the kids find them funny!)
fiddlesticks
no matter (courtesy of Eeyore)
Tooty Fruity
We have others but those are the most popular 🙂

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June 10, 2005

Jane

Wow, great additions!
Rozanne – My family has quite a few British-isms in our collective vocabulary, probably from my grandmother’s paternal grandparents. I imagine that’s where we get “blast,” “bother” and the ever-popular “Bob’s your uncle,” among other words and phrases.
JoyDJ – I love “son of bee’s nest”! I’ll have to remember that one.

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June 10, 2005

maggie

My three year old has let out a few good ones. In her defense and mine, she oftens says, “oh bother”, which I’m crediting with too much Pooh. I’m thinking I will need to add “dagnabbit” and “What in the Sam Hill?” to her vocabulary!

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