Community Event / Creation Profanities in the future

[drew]

It maybe a matter of style, but I don't personally like profanity in books (or in real life) very much - certainly not as a matter of course, but occasionally it is appropriate.

I don't want to use the modern day versions (no need for me to quote them here), but I wondered if there was interesting in putting together an 'Elite Universe Cussing Guide' so that characters would be able to share some colourful metaphors.

BSG had the excellent 'Frak', and I'd hope we'd come up with something along those lines without being derivative.

Thoughts?

Cheers,

Drew.

 

[Cmdr Andy B]

It maybe a matter of style, but I don't personally like profanity in books (or in real life) very much - certainly not as a matter of course, but occasionally it is appropriate.

I don't want to use the modern day versions (no need for me to quote them here), but I wondered if there was interesting in putting together an 'Elite Universe Cussing Guide' so that characters would be able to share some colourful metaphors.

BSG had the excellent 'Frak', and I'd hope we'd come up with something along those lines without being derivative.

Thoughts?

Cheers,

Drew.

I gotta say Drew that is a good question you space happy old asteroid miner, i need a real kick in my exhaust vents for not thinking of the future development of profanity in my piece of thrust residue of a story and I'm feeling like a bit of a waste of life support at the moment because i cant think of one vacuum sucking profanity that could be convincingly used in a book set over a thousand years from this hole in the waste processes of a decade.

sorry, I'm spaced if i can think of one so cant help - anyone else have any ideas?

 

[Nvmb3rth30ry]

Frakking hell, this piece of felgercarb will never fly.

 

[-o-]

The Dictionary of the Future: The Words, Terms and Trends That Define the Way We'll Live, Work and Talk

by Faith Popcorn, Adam Hanft

 

[Darren Grey]

I don't like fraks and frells myself. I understand them for television, where they literally cannot say the real words, but in print we have no such restriction.

Overall I agree that cursing should be limited to the most serious of situations. Too much and it loses impact whilst also putting off many readers.

Still, I do think building up a bit of in-universe lingo would be good. Would be cool if players started using them in the in-game chat. To be properly integrated NPCs should use them too, and I suppose this would be a good opportunity for Frontier to have certain fake curse words in the game whilst not hitting an automatic 18 rating. With the novels we might have the opportunity of embellishing their origins - explaining how "fluk" (or whatever) was the name of super-strong Lavean grub worm repellent that ended up wiping out the species by accident and rendering many colonists infertile. A character could reflect on how quaint the old "Fluk them up!" ads seem.

I've said before that I've been using "sol-damned" in place of "god-damned" in my text. I like these sort of simple variations.

Some Wikipediaing indicates that "frak" is also the name of an IKEA furniture style. I think it would be rather appropriate to find other 4-letter IKEA names to use as curse words.

We should have some slang insults between the Federation and the Empire too. "Imps" and "Fed-heads" is obvious enough, but we could have more inventive stuff.

Some other quick strawman ideas:

• "Dorp" - A devoted corporation employee/servant or a dumb consumer that doesn't think beyond what they see in the station ads. More generically used for someone stupid.
• "Pizput" - Someone weak and ineffectual, named after an old type of mining laser that often misfired. Used as a generic insult.
• "Goddo" - Religious nut, or someone with blind faith in something. "He was going goddo over the girl." A corruption of a name from a 20th century play.
• "Pift" - Dismissive curse of annoyance. From the sound of a laser misfiring (which thankfully rarely happens any more).

 

[Cody]

It maybe a matter of style, but I don't personally like profanity in books (or in real life) very much - certainly not as a matter of course, but occasionally it is appropriate.

That's the thing - occasionly! I'd say profanities should be used very sparingly. I use them on that basis, but I tend to use current Terran terminology (often in Spanish). As in RL, there are times when even the most mild-mannered being will cuss.

 

[Nvmb3rth30ry]

This is a great thread idea Drew, and something I honestly hadn't thought too much about yet. It's a rich vein to tap into... will help to create a lot of useful colour in the fiction AND the game itself, especially if we agree on certain favourites and can use them consistently across many (if not all) of the books.

Of course, Kate can start with 'belgium'

 

[rgmarett]

Frak was horrible.

You could have **** or **** or how about ******* but if you're really being rude how about ***

Seriously though, I agree with Drew about language. A lot of American TV series manage to be serious without using bad language and work it very well.

I know sometimes in print though it's just written as 'unprintable'

 

[nOmArch]

Oh come on we all know what Frak, Frell and Drek really mean and anyway they're just a substitute like **** is for a certain well known word.

e2a: LOL apparently f e c k is a swear word here already.

Which kinda emphasises my point, if we all agree that f e c k is a substitute for another word, people start using f e c k and other people get offended because they know that what the person is really saying is *** and you end up in a situation where you can't use either word.

 

[drew]

In someways I'm more concerned with an attempt at realism, given a thousand years has gone past. New lingo gets invented all the time. Back in the 19th century 'Damn' was a pretty heavy word, uttered only under duress due to its religious overtones; nowadays it seems rather twee. Like our current profanities will have moved on.

My problem with things like 'Sol-Damned' is that it's actually quite hard to say, and common profanities slip off the tongue easily, hence their popularity.

In my Oolite saga I used:

Fragged/Frag (Rather than Frak - possibly from fragment (debris from an explosion) 'Fragged up good and proper' or 'what the frag' etc)
Goid/Goidson (Derogatory for Thargoid as in 'You stupid goid!' or 'son of a goid')
Fluxed (Dangerous ship coolant ' Fluxed up' or 'Fluxstain!')
Smirched (Broken, or unfixable as in 'totally smirched')
Pished (fairly obvious)

My aim being to make them recognisably similar to 'real' words, but also things that you could imagine people saying with ease - if that makes sense.

Happy for them to be added to the collective.

Cheers,

Drew.

 

[krisavery]

Just playing around to see if anything stands out...

Thag (A short-hand name for Thargoids? Derogatory)
Variations:-
Thag hag
Thag lover


Sayings based around the planets in Elite and their descriptions (plenty to go on if you take this angle... and it keeps it in the Elite universe then too)

Lave Slave
Diso dog
Stick it up your Inus
Reorte rat
You smell like Alaza (The world Alaza is scourged by a evil disease. )
For all the tulips in Maregeis...
you eat like an Aronarian goat

etc.. Food for thought!

edit: One more... You're gonna die like a poet! (refering to edible poets, thus eaten alive)

 

[Cody]

Food for thought!

Did someone mention food?

 

[Darren Grey]

I like 'fluxstain' and 'goid'. Both sound natural and understandable.

'Fragged up' is fine, as it has connotations of frag grenades. But 'what the frag' sounds wrong to me. These f-word replacements always end up sounding cartoony to me.

'Pished' is obviously fine, though try saying 'pishhead' and its not much different from the original Maybe we could use 'hyped' or 'hypered' for high on drugs?

 

[Cody]

But 'what the frag' sounds wrong to me. These f-word replacements always end up sounding cartoony to me.

<nods>

 

[Mobius]

I cant imagine that swear words would change, they havnt changed much in the past 1300 so I wouldnt think they would change much in the next 1300 years, but I guess you are looking for words that sound like they could be swear words. like clunge or Rodding, shapping, it maybe worth using words that we use today and just turning them into swear words like fuzz or base.

 

[Apatura Iris]

I cant imagine that swear words would change, they havnt changed much in the past 1300 so I wouldnt think they would change much in the next 1300 years, but I guess you are looking for words that sound like they could be swear words. like clunge or Rodding, shapping, it maybe worth using words that we use today and just turning them into swear words like fuzz or base.

I agree. Their very prevalence in day-to-day use gives them longevity. Just because we don't like hearing them doesn't mean they're not used, profusely, and with passion.

Personally all of the 'future' attempts just grate horribly on me and feel desperately contrived. If we follow the logical conclusion that swearwords have changed, then so too will a great deal of other language that we currently use (which would of course render the dialogue quite unreadable, or very 'Clockwork Orange'). Why cherrypick just the swearing for change?

I can understand the sentiment of a fictional commander saying "got you, you f#cker" with great satisfaction after popping a missile up the fuel scoops of a particularly troublesome opponent. But "got you, you fragger" (sorry to pick on the 'fragger' - it could as easily be any invented word without a recognisable etymology) is nails down a blackboard time for me.

Jon

 

[Cmdr Andy B]

I like 'fluxstain' and 'goid'. Both sound natural and understandable.

'Fragged up' is fine, as it has connotations of frag grenades. But 'what the frag' sounds wrong to me. These f-word replacements always end up sounding cartoony to me.

'Pished' is obviously fine, though try saying 'pishhead' and its not much different from the original Maybe we could use 'hyped' or 'hypered' for high on drugs?

for someone who is hyped up on stimulants I've been using 'Space Happy'

Space Happy it was called, a pilot so far over the edge from lack of sleep they started to hallucinate; docking controllers were trained to spot the warning signs. As they requested clearance such ships were waved away, sent to one of the orbital mooring buoys further out in the system where they could do no harm. In extreme cases the pilots would not listen; so high on stimulants and intent on delivering their cargo that all reason and thought of safety eluded even the most persuasive of argument. In times like this the station dispatched its Vipers to deal with the problem; too many lives could be put at risk not to. If the pilot failed to heed the call to shut down their engines and either prepare to be boarded or make ready to be towed they didn't call a second time; they let their weapons systems speak for them and turned your ship into scrap for the salvage yards.

Space salvage law was very specific on this point; once the Viper stings, everybody dies.

 

[Geraldine]

What about this Drew?

 

[jptreen]

Personally, I had no problem with 'frak', but now find it plain funny that the word 'fracking' is now in such common use for something rather unpopular.

I wouldn't want big gas fracking in my back garden either - they always make such a mess.

It just sounds so wrong.

I'll agree that some swear words have been around a long time, but others are far shorter lived. Others don't diminish with time, but actually gain power and stigma. I'll also agree that it only makes sense that space slang would develop.

All my favourite fiction makes up it's own language, from Shakespeare to Firefly.

Some words likely to become pejorative to spacefarers but have nary any bite to us may include:

'Poster' - as in someone who lives on an orbital trading post - a 'small town hick' if you will.

"Shut it, poster boy."

So I'd be unhappy if new and exciting ways to swear were omitted from Elite fiction. Come up with words, phrases. A language. It's a big galaxy, everyone can use different ones. Might be nice to have a wiki for the language, though. That kind of depth draws people into fiction like nothing else (well, it draws me in like nothing else!).

 

[wondervirus]

So I'd be unhappy if new and exciting ways to swear were omitted from Elite fiction.

I don't think it's really possible to NOT have new words crop up, swearing or otherwise. Eeeevery collection of people will always come up with their little collection of words.

I just hope the ones that come up don't sound too silly.