One set that's stuck with me by
Tomash
on 2016-09-02 22:58:00 UTC
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is the main Hani swear from the Chanur novels, which is "[gods] rot [x]". For example, "Gods rot the internet in this building.", which feels like the right thing to say when it takes five minutes to connect to campus wifi. As with many swearwords, it's short and grammatically versatile, with derivatives ranging from "gods!" to "gods-rotted".
From the same books, "gods-be" is probably a euphemism for something, and works OK for general-purpose frustration.
(And there's the tangential question of why any of these expressions might be swearwords. Everyone who's perspective we see thinks it's too obvious to mention.)
First, hello! by
Data Junkie
on 2016-09-01 18:41:00 UTC
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Second, in no particular order; "Vera's tits" "By the blood on Vera's floor" from the Dragaera novels, "Frag" "Drek" from Shadowrun, "Slag" "Scrap" "Pit" "Great Smelter" from Transformers, and "Merlin's Beard" from Harry Potter.
Alleb! *wavewave* by
TheShyIon
on 2016-09-01 05:09:00 UTC
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You exist! And are around! :o
Barking spiders, you're back! by
Cat-on-the-Keyboard
on 2016-09-01 04:31:00 UTC
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The curse is from Scott Westerfeld's Leviathan series, which I mostly read for the sake of seeing people use that curse (and the steampunk animal-dirigibles, of course). Scott Westerfeld's books in general have pretty great slang; he borrows from everywhere. "Barking spiders" used to be a Victorian euphemism for farting, but it fit the setting better as a curse.
Fly By Night, by Frances Hardinge, (as well as the sequel) has some fun stuff: "pixelated" is used to insult someone, saying their senses must have been stolen by the pixies. There's lots of different kinds of slang in that book, because there are lots of dialects, and it's full of competing rulers and gods to swear on.
This is historical fiction, so it's probably based on real curses, but Karen Cushman's Catherine Called Birdie, a book I really loved when I was about ten, has a nice part about curses. It's set in medieval England, and the title character (a girl of mildly noble birth) hears that at court, everyone has their own individual curses, usually along the lines of "G-d's [body part]!" So she spends months going through ideas, trying to find one of her own. The nice-sounding ones like "G-d's beard!" and "G-d's teeth!" are taken, so she's playing with curses like "G-d's elbows!" and driving her family crazy.
--Key
Farscape and Pern have loads of good ones. by
Neshomeh
on 2016-08-31 17:09:00 UTC
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I found a rather entertaining guide to swearing in the Uncharted Territories, saving me the work of having to explain it all. Check it out! It'll pretty much give you the flavor of the whole universe.
As for Pern... well, scorch it, you'd have to be a sharding deadglow not to love Pernese curse words. It's not wherryteeth, I swear by the First Egg. They're mostly clean and all secular, since the Pernese don't consider sex to be taboo and they have no religion to speak of, and they reflects their priorities—mainly the importance of dragons. Also, most of them are easy and satisfying to say. Shards! Shells! Shaffit! Fardles! It'll be a warm day between before I get tired of them. I'll be a begreened tunnelsnake if I lie, so don't be a hidebound flitterby: give them a try! ^_^
~Neshomeh
OT: ALLEB!!! by
Matt Cipher
on 2016-08-31 07:42:00 UTC
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Alleb is back! Alleb is back! Alleb is back! :D
Take ALL the Infinite Pizza you can get!

Not quite sure if it counts, by
Larfen J. Stocke, esq
on 2016-08-31 07:34:00 UTC
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But there's one part in Slaughterhouse-Five when the main character's daughter is described as a 'bitchy flibbertigibbet.'
Now that's a name I'd love to be called.
I mean, the whole novel's fairly bizarre, so I think it fits right in, honestly. Helps get the arguable insanity and unreliability of the narrator across, too.
Time for Butcher Time (with Sanderson on the side.) by
Hardric
on 2016-08-31 06:15:00 UTC
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Dresdenverse got Hell's bells, Star and Stones and Empty Night. And the three of them are working titles for his big apocalyptic trilogy to conclude the series.
Or you could go in crowbegotten place, aka Carna, with Codex Alera. By the Great Furies, you need to visit it.
Last good ones I remember are from te seequel books from Mistborn with Wax, with rusting wackos in the back. Rust and Ravage.
Well, since d'arvit was taken... by
Granz the Ice Cream Monarch
on 2016-08-31 04:52:00 UTC
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I'd say probably 'May your life be ever-interesting.' In that particular universe, 'interesting' can mean 'An Arch-Villain who has been alive for centuries and who has become increasingly insane had his minor plan to transport a flower from Point A to Point B thwarted by you, and so he has now decided to personally exact revenge.'
One and only one comes to mind by
Mattman The Comet
on 2016-08-31 02:50:00 UTC
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And it can be summed up in this one image:
