Complex Numbers

Curse-ive

Speaking of words, here's a list from Cracked:

    11 Old-Timey Curse Words That Make You Sound Like Yosemite Sam  
At the very least they might increase your ‘Scrabble’ score

Nowhere is the expression "words have power" more true than in the Land of Cuss. Cursington. Swearsburg. Naughtywordville. Whatever. But repetition makes almost any word lose its magic, until it becomes just another word.

That's why I think it's important to switch things up a bit, by making up new curses, or, as this article does, resurrecting old ones.

Even in my lifetime, the social acceptability of full-on sailor-mouth has become much more accepted.

My father would be offended by that description. He was a sailor, but rarely cussed. I guess he was trying to set a good example for me. Did it work? Shit, no.

I would have been hesitant to let loose a “damnit” around my parents in days of yore...

I once got upbraided by a Mennonite for saying "damn" in front of them. No, that's not how this works. How this works is: if you're around me, you put up with my curses. Because I do, in fact, give plenty of damns.

Now, like the headline says, there are 11 of these, and I can't be arsed to comment on all of them.

9 Gadzooks

You know a curse word has lost its power when it ends up as the name of a mall stalwart.

A what, now? Never heard of it.

A name that feels much grimmer once you realize that gadzooks is a bastardization of “God’s Hooks,” referring to the nails used to crucify Jesus.

You gotta wonder if that naming was on purpose.

If any mall store should have been called Gadzooks, it should have been Claire’s, given that they handled piercings.

There are two major classifications of naughty words: One celebrates and uplifts the most base subjects, like "shit" or the all-powerful F word. The other classification is blasphemous, like "goddammit" or "Christ on a crutch." This is why it's likely that the most perfect curse ever created is "holy fucking shit."

What's blasphemy to one religion, though, might be nothing to another. It's hard to blaspheme around me, for example, unless you try to tell me that my favorite beer is pisswater.

5 Rantallion

At first glance, you’d assume rantallion was a relative of “rapscallion,” but you’d be plum wrong. It’s a penis, but not just any penis: It’s a penis that's specifically shorter than the scrotum.

But what if you just happen to have low-hanging balls?

4 Quim

Quim is an antiquated synonym of a modern curse word, though it’s one that, at least in America, still gets you kicked out of a Panera Bread posthaste.

One of the most delightful things in any Marvel movie ever was when Loki got away with calling Natasha a "mewling quim" in a PG-13 movie. I mean, I knew what the word meant. Perhaps the MPAA did not.

1 Defenestrate

Okay, I'll admit, this isn’t a swear, but it is a delightfully antiquated word that everyone deserves to know.

Yeah, that's cheating. But it is a glorious word that deserves more popularity. As in, "The Mennonite threatened to defenestrate me for saying 'damn' in front of him."