Invented swear words

[Isabel (kittiwake)]

The swearing in "The Integral Trees"l by Larry Niven fits in well with Luke's theory about the kind of words that are suitable for use as swear words.

The characters live on enormous trees floating in free-fall. Because the trees aren't rooted in soil, branches and foliage move along the trunk as they age until they are swallowed by an enormous hole, the tree mouth. The tree's human inhabitants feed the tree with rubbish, faeces, urine, and the bodies of the dead, and they use treefeeder and treefeeding as swear words.

Has anyone come across any other good examples of invented swearing in their reading?

[Paul]

I can't remember any in my reading but I like the swearing ideas in the Firefly TV series and Serenity film.

[Sean]

I think it's in the Wheel of Time series where somebody uses "bloody flux" (i.e. bloody diarrhea) as a curse. I also recall "buttered onion" which is apparently some sort of disgusting sex act.

And a real life counter example -- one of the harshest insults in Japanese is "kisama" which is simply an archaic and ultra-formal version of "you" roughly equivalent to "your highness" or "your eminence" in English. But in modern Japanese the word's only used ironically in a sense that translates as, "You arrogant son of a bitch."

[Stephen]

Drokk! Grud!