The Craptastic Guide to Pseudo-Swearing

by Michelle Witte

True, dropping a well-placed swear can make even the worst situations seem better, but sometimes a "fudge!" or "sugar!" can be equally satisfying--and won't land you in trouble. The Craptastic Guide to Pseudo-Swearing offers new, creative, and clean ways to express how fetchin' mad some son of a biscuit made you. Featuring a variety of games, instructions, and helpful hints, Craptastic proves there are endless cussing alternatives for any rassafrackin' situation. The book offers a dictionary of terms, and is broken down into craptacular categories including Classics, Sexy Talk, and Safe for Church. Toss in games like Cross Words Puzzle and Play It Safe Hangman, tidbits about noteworthy curses in pop culture, plus a plethora of other interactive features, and you have a book that will turn anyone into a prodigious fake curser in no time.

Genres: Humor, Nonfiction

176 pages, Hardcover

First published June 26, 2012

About the author

Michelle Witte is a literary agent with Mansion Street Literary Management specializing in children’s fiction and nonfiction. As an agent, her tastes vary widely, and she represents authors across the spectrum of kids books, from illustrated board and picture books to middle grade and young adult fiction and nonfiction. Michelle is always on the lookout for fascinating stories that are well told, especially those with a distinct and distinctive voice. Her own published work includes The Craptastic Guide to Pseudo-Swearing and The Faker’s Guide to the Classics. She lives in Utah.

Visit her online at www.michellewittebooks.com

Reviews

[Michelle Witte]

Holy crap! I wrote this book. That's fan-frickin'-tastic!

[William · Rating 3 out of 5]

Holy crap on a cracker! This book is just in time for a fun summer read. Author Michelle Witte uses her dry,offbeat humor to instruct us in the fine art of pseudo-cursing a blue streak-vocalizing words that sound dirty, but will never tenderizing tiny ears with genuine off-limit four-letter words.
Some words are picked up from popular culture, such as the title word "craptastic" and its cousins, "craptacular" and plain old "crap on a stick.
Hit your thumb with a hammer? Just scream out "Mother of Pearl!" Some idiot cut you off in traffic? Let him know he's a "son of a peach!"
With some pseudo-swears, Witte inspires the reader to genetically design his or her own breed of swear words,following a basic blueprint of prefixes and suffixes.
A few sound so dirty (lint licker) that even the phony words might bring a blush to bashful faces.
Witte herself can only be described as a crapacious, mother-forking genius. And I mean that in a totally good way.

[Yaaresse · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sometimes when I have a couple of dense or somber books going, I like to take a break with something fluffy or silly-stupid. This caught my eye on the library's website. Fit the bill after being a little freaked out by Ted Koppel's new book and weighed down by the new Wright Brothers tome.

It's a very fast read. There's likely nothing in it you didn't already know or couldn't make up yourself, but it's good for a couple of chuckles. And because I am bored to death by hearing the f-bomb reduced to being used as a comma or verbal tic, I appreciate the idea.

Seriously, peeps, let's be a little more creative than the same half dozen expletives used to death. Sweet mother gherkins, let's use a little imagination once in a while.

[Carson hall · Rating 1 out of 5]

Probably because I am a big city girl I just could not get into this. I hate to leave one star reviews, but I just didn't find this amusing at all.

[Tammy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm always up for a good etymology (word origin and history) book and this one had me laughing out loud. I was surprised at how many of the "old sayings" I grew up hearing in the country really were replacements for swear words. Of course some were obvious and as the author says any word can become a swear word using the right tone and body language just some won't get you sent to the principal's office or written up by your boss.

[Jana · Rating 3 out of 5]

That this book exists is just sort of funny. Growing up in Utah I think I heard almost all of these creative fake cuss words. Gave me a laugh.

[530 Book Club]

My review keeps getting deleted. I'm only pseudo swearing, sheesh. Anywho, a fun and funny read.