The Ten Best Science Fiction Profanities

Who doesn’t like swearing? Actually, quite a lot of people now that I think about it. Nevertheless, profanities are a cornerstone of language, and if you’re a science fiction writer, making up your own swears is a nifty way to create the feeling of an alien culture. Nothing quite displays the values of a society as what they find offensive, and the way a character chooses to curse can tell you some key things about them, even if you don’t understand the language they’re cursing in.

If your story is set in the future, a well-placed fictional epithet can also demonstrate the ways society has changed. With one stroke, you can be both creative and crass, and get some world-building points to boot, crucial if you’re going to keep people interested. Plus, it’s always pleasing as an audience member to know that after we’ve made contact with other races we’ll still be getting upset and dropping f-bombs of some sort, even if they aren’t the particular f-bombs we’re more familiar with today.

Consider this, then, the outer space version of the “Seven Dirty Words” plus three. We’ll be disregarding the memorable Chinese curses from the Firefly universe; not because they don’t count, but because TR already tackled that subject in another list. Even without those, however, we have a very healthy selection to pick from, so don’t you worry. It’s not a comprehensive list by any means, but should you ever find yourself at a con surrounded by hardcore cosplayers who only choose to speak in specific fictional languages, you will at least be able to tell all of them to fuck off in ways they’ll each be able to understand. And isn’t that what real communication is all about?

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