Gosh Dang It to Heck/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: A show refuses to use swearing, preferring to use more childish workarounds.

  • Straight: Bob is a full-grown adult, yet verses his displeasure with phrases like "goshdang it!" and "oh, crud!"
  • Exaggerated:
    • Bob is a Mafia don who's just seen his entire mob gunned down by Inspector Javert and a squad of cops. It comes to the final showdown, and he comes out, guns blazing, screaming "DIE, you... doodooheads!"
    • In the entire universe where the story takes place in, they ARE considered swear words. Fuck is the more toned down version of Fudge.
  • Downplayed: Bob normally doesn't swear, but every now and then he'll use a Precision Darn Strike.
  • Justified:
    • Bob is around kids a lot, and prefers to use those variants on the words.
    • Bob's religion frowns upon cussing, or even forbids it entirely. But, Bob is only human, and thus is prone to displeasure (and the need/desire to voice that displeasure) now and then, so he works around the "No cussing" rule this way.
    • Bob personally finds swearing distasteful, but this is a deliberate character trait rather than a demand of the Moral Guardians.
  • Inverted: Cluster F-Bomb, Sir Swearsalot
  • Subverted: "What a gosh-darn cunt!"
  • Double Subverted: "What a gosh darn cunnn...try music fan!"
  • Parodied:
    • Bob is a shock-jock down at the local radio station. What you'd expect to be a very profane show is instead very childish.
    • Bob speaks Angrish when he gets mad, and no-one save God knows what he's actually saying, as it sounds like a slobbering dog mixed with mindless seething and dirty Japanese and Spanish words. However, anyone who overhears it is horrified.
    • Unusual Euphemism
  • Deconstructed: Bob sees his refusing to swear as a mark of deep personal morality, balancing out his less salubrious qualities such as serial puppy murdering. He's contrasted with a foul-mouthed hero in a story with An Aesop about censorship being Bad, M'kay?
  • Reconstructed: Bob knows how to swear... he just prefers not to.
  • Zig Zagged: Bob gets in a screaming row with a guy in a bar, without ever uttering a word unsuitable for children's television. On the way out he steps in a puddle; "Aw, fuck."
  • Averted:
    • Bob swears at regular intervals, but nothing too insane.
    • The show doesn't use phrases where swearing could logically go in the first place.
  • Enforced:
    • "This show is watched by a lot of kids, so we can't show swearing!"
    • "This show is generally a Cluster F-Bomb, so having that one guy never swear will make him stand out and be an early hint towards his being a Knight Templar."
  • Lampshaded: "Nice language. What are you, a kindergarten teacher?"
  • Invoked: Bob prefers to tone down the foul language specifically so that when he does breaks it out, you know he REALLY means it.
  • Defied: "I may be around kids who don't know any better, but still... fucking hell, man!"
  • Discussed: "You see, if everyone knows you never use serious curses normally, it has more impact when you really need it."
  • Conversed: "Goddamn kids shows, what kind of Drill Sergeant Nasty says "fiddlesticks"?"
  • Played For Laughs:
    • Bob curses all the time when he's calm but when he's in rage mode, he'll start using "Gosh dangnabit"-ish swears.
    • Bob is a gritty, chain-smoking Badass who is surrounded by people who swear like sailors, but he never uses anything more harsh than "friggin'." People are too scared of him to ask why.

Push off back to Gosh Dang It to Heck, ya darn chucklehead.