English is weird! » movies http://englishisweird.com Clever tricks to conquer the quirks of English Sun, 26 Jul 2009 23:38:25 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Alternatives to motherf*cking http://englishisweird.com/alternatives-to-motherfucking/ http://englishisweird.com/alternatives-to-motherfucking/#comments Mon, 25 May 2009 21:37:59 +0000 admin http://englishisweird.com/?p=90 The late American comedian George Carlin ranked motherf*cker in the top 7 most obscene words of the English language. Along with its derivative, motherf*cking, it’s become a trademark for actors like Samuel L. Jackson who portray aggressive badasses.

Of course, when a TV edit comes out, interesting changes suddenly happen:

monkey-fighting, Monday-to-Friday

Snakes on a Plane:

The best part for me is that there’s a writer out there whose job is to come up with clever substitutions for these taboo words. What a cool job for poets, phoneticians and other experts at the sounds of language. You have to keep roughly the same number of syllables and lip and tongue positions for the new word to fit smoothly over the censored one.

Here are some more popular or strange replacements for those naughty words: 

Mr. Falcon

Die Hard series:

fairy godmother

Usual Suspects:

little sucker

Pulp Fiction:

mother crusher

Robocop:

money fueller

Snakes on a Plane:

money lover, stupid sucker

Casino:

 If you know any other ones, let me know!

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