You're talking about sex, right? Because it actually would've been a lot easier to have just said that.
"I apprehended the accused and advised him of his rights. He replied, 'Why don't you ram it up your pimhole, you fusking clothprunker.'"
The characters are talking about an embarrassing issue by using a rubber-ducking euphemism that the scriptwriters just made up.
Many Science Fiction shows make up such curse words so as not to offend Standards and Practices, probably because these expressions can pass as Future Slang.
Can sometimes even be the result of censorship: see the Bowdlerization: Film subpage.
Rather than being used to talk about an embarrassing issue, may be used to discuss something of questionable legality without attracting attention. If used to talk about one's personal body parts, the trope is I Call Him "Mister Happy".
Sister trope to Sexual Euphemism and Deadly Euphemism. Contrast Unusual Dysphemism. Compare Smurfing, Never Say "Die", Foreign Cuss Word, Pardon My Klingon, Gosh Dang It to Heck!, Curse of The Ancients, Hold Your Hippogriffs, Getting Crap Past the Radar, Swear Word Plot, Angrish, Informed Obscenity. Super-Trope to Gay Euphemism, which is about avoiding directly using homosexuality-related terms, Go to the Euphemism, for euphemisms for using the bathroom, A Visit from Aunt Flo(w) for euphemisms for menstruation, and Technical Euphemism, for when the euphemism uses Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness, Spock Speak or similar.
See also Lampshaded Double Entendre. If a character interprets an innocent phrase as one of these, you have Imagined Innuendo. Intercourse with You songs and, of course, bawdy ones sometimes have a lot of these.
Examples Subpages:
- Advertising
- Anime & Manga
- Comic Books
- Fan Works
- Films — Live-Action
- Literature
- Live-Action TV
- Music
- Radio
- Tabletop Games
- Theatre
- Video Games
- Web Animation
- Webcomics
- Web Original
- Western Animation
Other examples:
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Audio Play
- Trampy Movies: The policeman in "Toby" is furious when Thomas yells, "Blow my whistle, asshole!" at him.
Comedy
- Gay Scottish comedian Larry Dean reports on generative Gay Euphemisms:
In Scotland, we can describe somebody as a homosexual by using any noun in the English language. Like, "Is he a blueberry, aye?" "Oh, see that guy, I've heard he's a lava lamp." I found this out when I was having an argument with my dad, right, cos I could see my dad wanted to call me a big jessie, but I could see him thinking, "I don't know if that's homophobic now, actually," so my dad went, "Ah, get lost, you big... duvet!"
- Irish comedian Dylan Moran discusses how, even in modern times, topics such as homosexuality are still dressed with euphemisms.
"Well you know what they say about John, don't you?"
"Actually, no, I don't. What do they say?"
"Well, you know, that he's..." (raises right knee into air)
"...what?"
"You know, he's still picking up twigs in the springtime... (beat) ...he likes his toast done on all three sides." - Any verbified noun is a euphemism for drunk, according to Michael McIntyre.
"Did you have a drink last night?"
"Are you joking? I got utterly gazebo'd." - Patton Oswalt did an infamous bit combining this with Gosh Dang It to Heck! while telling about how producers for network (as in censored) programming wanted the same material he usually delivered, but in a censor-friendly way. The results were rather disturbing.
"I'm gonna fill your hoo-ha with goof-juice!" That is fucking horrifying!"When Captain Frosting gets done with your bingle bangle it's gonna look like a rat in a rainstorm when I'm all done with my love paints."
Comic Strips
- For Better or for Worse used "boxcar" to represent swearing (for aphasic Grandpa Jim), and "going roadside" to indicate having sex.
- "Foob."
- Pearls Before Swine had Pig crying out in pain "Ohhhhhhhh my Oompa Loompas" after taking a hit to the groin.
- Doonesbury:
- It is known for substituting inappropriate words with a description of the words in parens, for example (expletive) or (body part)
- In one example
◊ an angry Frank Sinatra lets loose with an "obscene gerund" which puzzles the medium aware target of his rage.
- FoxTrot:
- Paige once told Peter to "eat spit and die".
- In another strip, when Andy asked Jason how it was like golfing with his father, Jason replied that it was "colorful". Andy then asks whether he meant the color of nature, the ball, the clubs, or his dad's orange plaid golf pants, Jason elaborated to mean that he was actually referring to Roger's language. Cue Roger swearing.
- Lampshaded in another strip, in which Peter stubs his toe and shouts things like "asterisk" and "dollar sign," and then remarks that "comic-strip curse words leave something to be desired." Jason helpfully suggests he add some daggers and lightning bolts. Oh, *$&!
- Garfield: In the April 4, 1982◊ strip, Garfield refers to Odie as a "dumb cluck".
- Baby Blues had at least one in the form of "child-safe cuss words".
Daryll: Dingy-dangy dog-gone heck to phooey!
- In one Bloom County comic, Opus is writing a personals ad for a woman who is seeking "intense physical affection," but doesn't want to sound crude. Opus suggests "snugglebunnies" as an alternative euphemism, and the woman insists that he use "sweaty snugglebunnies" instead.
- Pogo: "Rowrbazzle!"
- Beetle Bailey:
- The January 4, 2015 strip has the base chaplain suggest to Sarge that he use the word "grawlix" in place of profanity. As in the actual word "grawlix".
- In the July 25, 2007 strip, a nearly naked Miss Buxley uses a couple of euphemisms for her private parts when she tells General Halftrack over the phone that she won't be in to work because she has a "leak in her plumbing" and she's waiting for the repairman to fix the leak and replace a missing part on her heating thingy.
- In one of Lynda Barry's Maybonne storyline strips, Brenda refers to an "F.U. and an Elvis", some sort of sexual act, being forced on her. The euphemism use serves as an in-universe Parental Bonus, as she's getting the message to Maybonne via her little sister Marlys, who doesn't know what those things are.
Films — Animation
- Cars: Combined with Thank the Maker, as cars say things like "For the love of Chrysler!" and "Ford Almighty!"
- Disney Animated Canon:
- Bambi: The owl says "twitterpated" as a euphemism for "smitten".
- The Little Mermaid (1989) has "Jumping jellyfish!" as an euphemism.
- The Princess and the Frog: When Naveen crashes Charlotte's wedding, she exclaims "Cheese and crackers!"
- Wreck-It Ralph has this on several levels. One of these is Sergeant Calhoun, who you think would swear like the soldier she is, but apparently Hero's Duty has the language filter turned on because her Trash Talk comes out like, "If you wanna go pee-pee in your big-boy slacks, keep it to yourself." Then you have other characters, such as Felix, using odd curses such as "Oh my land!" But the most plot-significant euphemism is universal in the arcade: the phrase "Going Turbo". All the arcade characters respond with dread except for Calhoun because she's new to the arcade and doesn't know its history. Felix explains it to her (and the audience) as their lingo for a game character going rogue.Explanation
- Zootopia (2016): Assistant Bellwether comes out with "Oh, muttonchops!" when frustrated.
- Disney Fairies: Much strange fairy slang is used. Including, but not limited to: "Who gives a pile of pebbles?", "Flitterific!", "Splinters!", "Teetering Teapots!", "By the second star!". And from the book: "Fly with you", "I'd fly backwards if I could" and the popular slur for humans: "Clumsies."
- Fantastic Mr. Fox: All swear words are efficiently replaced with "cuss". People in the audience who catch on shouldn't have any trouble deciphering the uses of "cluster-cuss" and "cussin' with their heads", for example. In the background of one scene, "CUSS" is written in graffiti on a wall.
- Skipper the penguin from Madagascar is fond of euphemisms such as "Hoover Dam!" and "Shiitake mushrooms!"
- My Little Pony: The Movie (1986): The Grundle king tends to say "aw, Grundlemumf!" in situations where profanity would be expected in a work with a higher rating.
- Penguins of Madagascar: Skipper is not too comfortable in lederhosen, since they're riding up in his "bundesliga".
- Storks: Hunter orders Junior to "liberate" Tulip and then bluntly and repeatedly makes crystal clear that he means to fire her.
Hunter: If I'm not being clear, I mean fire her!
- Toy Story:
- The first movie has Mr. Potato Head say "Son of a building block" at the sight of Woody.
- In Toy Story 2, when Hamm is rapidly channel-surfing and he accidentally skips past the channel the Al's Toy Barn commercial is on at the time, as Hamm switches to the "channel down" button he quickly says he's "gotta go round the horn", as it's faster.
- In Toy Story 4, Woody exclaims "Oh, Chutes and Ladders!" when Forky insists that he's trash instead of a toy and tries to make a run for a trash can.
- Turning Red: When Mei is freaking out about turning into a titanic red panda and trying to hide it from her parents, her mother Ming thinks she is freaking out about something else, asking Mei "Did the... did the red peony bloom?"
- Who Framed Roger Rabbit:
- "Applesauce!" This is coming from Baby Herman, an old-timer in a toon baby's body. He uses euphemisms a few times in the movie. To be fair, "applesauce" was a common explicative in the twenties, used to denote frustration or disbelief, the way Herman used it.
Baby Herman: My problem is I got a fifty-year-old lust and a three-year-old dinky.
[later in the same scene]
Baby Herman: The paper said Acme had no will. That's a load o' succotash. - It's obvious what is meant by Jessica and Marvin Acme "playing patty-cake". Subverted when it turns out they're playing actual patty-cake.
- "Applesauce!" This is coming from Baby Herman, an old-timer in a toon baby's body. He uses euphemisms a few times in the movie. To be fair, "applesauce" was a common explicative in the twenties, used to denote frustration or disbelief, the way Herman used it.
Other
- The Heart Symbol:
- It's speculated that it's actually a crude drawing of someone's posterior or bust. Ergo, admiring someone for their "heart" is actually a euphemism for ogling them.
- Another interpretation is that it's the seedpod of the extinct sylphium plant, which reportedly had aphrodisiac properties and was used as a spice. Therefore, what we tell the children is Cardiovascular Love really means "I want to roofie this person's food."
Podcasts
- Mission to Zyxx uses "juck" in place of the familiar F-bomb and "Rod" in place of all references to a God.
Professional Wrestling
- In WWE, Kurt Angle and Booker T once had a Shout-Out to Die Hard when Booker asked Angle, "You really think you have a chance, Mr. Cowboy?" Angle's response: "Yippie-kai-yay, Mother Hubbard."
- The independent wrestling company CHIKARA promotes itself as family-friendly and discourages foul language. This led to fans chanting "Holy Poop" after impressive moves or dives.
- The Rock used a lot of these, notably using "pie" as a nickname for vaginas, and "strudel" as a nickname for penises.
- John Cena, vocabulary constrained by WWE's new PG policy, has recently made "Elimination Chamber" a euphemism for "ass". Runs into Department of Redundancy Department when he starts talking about "kicking people's elimination chambers" and then going to the Elimination Chamber PPV and "kicking more elimination chamber".
- Double Subverted. Contrary to popular belief, the word 'ass' can be and is said by John Cena and others in the PG era. He only did that in one or two promos for the sake of a Pun... it would have turned into a Cluster A Bomb otherwise.
And: "BALONEY, FUDGE AND MUSTARD! MY LIFE IS BEING RUINED BY THE INTERNET!"
Visual Novels
- In the town in ghostpia, "sweets" is used as a euphemism for various sorts of drugs, a fact that Sayoko is annoyed to discover nobody told her since, being a foreigner, she never considered that it was a euphemism to begin with.
Web Video
- American High Digital:
- "Girls Code Words" has some rather interesting terms being used instead of guy's names, from "Pineapple" to "2009 Housing Crisis".
- In "The Reality Of Most Vision Boards", an image of the Eiffel Tower is supposed to be a metaphor for "new sex stuff". The link between the two is not explained.
