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There's a tradition of sorts in sci-fi where aliens or future humans use profanity that doesn't exist in the real world. I'm curious when this started. Which story or novel is the first time the writer made up profanity? It's acceptable if they used real profanity in addition to their made up profanity.

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  • could you provide some examples of made-up profanity? At the moment I can't even recall any in the first place to be honest :)
    – DVK-on-Ahch-To
    Mar 29, 2011 at 17:21
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    @DVK Frak.
    – user366
    Mar 29, 2011 at 17:28
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    @DVK Farscape had quite a bit - frell, dren, hezmana. Larry Niven's books used TANJ - There Ain't No Justice.
    – user1027
    Mar 29, 2011 at 17:40
  • @DVK @Mark Trapp And felgercarb.
    – Michael Todd
    Mar 29, 2011 at 19:09
  • You actually might get a more thoroughly researched response to this on the English SE site, although I don't know if words coined solely for fiction would be within the scope of allowed questions there.
    – Goodbye Stack Exchange
    Apr 2, 2011 at 16:06

9 Answers 9

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E E "Doc" Smiths Lensmen series (published between 1934 and 1948) included fictional profanity, at least in passing.

There's a scene where someone is transcribing a conversation in an alien tongue where one of the parties blanches at the use of an insult, the strongest in the language. In english it was something like "Shronizfied" with the meaning "descended from countless generations of muck living flatworm".

I'll dig the books out of storage and see if I can find an exact quote. [Nice to have a reason to re-read a classic ... ;-) ]

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  • He also uses a number of adjectives in place of profanity... one can readily replace starkly with the F*bomb and not change the meanings...
    – aramis
    Mar 30, 2011 at 21:27
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    "Srizonified" is from Masters of the Vortex, and hence is relatively late. Kinnison, however, was swearing by Klono (a god nobody believed in with numerous alliterative body parts) pretty much from his introduction.
    – David Thornley
    Apr 2, 2011 at 2:10
  • That's the word - though I though it was earlier in the series.
    – Bevan
    Apr 2, 2011 at 3:23
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Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange was written in 1962, and contained an entire lexicon of "Nadsat" slang. Some of those words are clearly intended as profanities.

Aldus Huxley's Brave New World predates that by quite a bit (1931), but I'd say its debatable whether the terminology in there really equates to profanity ("Gamma minus", a designation from the novel's caste system, is probably the closest thing to a profanity, although "soma", the name given to a fictional drug, is probably the most clearly "made-up" word).

There may very well be other examples, but these are the ones I could think of. While I think it's a great question, I'm not sure we'll get a real, definitive answer.

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  • We might not get the answer, but I think the community can find a pretty good answer. I'll settle for the latter if we can't find anything concrete.
    – user1027
    Mar 29, 2011 at 23:05
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    Much of Clockwork Orange's expletives are simply borrowed from other languages.
    – aramis
    Mar 30, 2011 at 21:28
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    @aramis Very true. The nadsat language is a polyglot of several different languages, slangs, and made-up words. From wikipedia: "It is a mix of modified Slavic words, rhyming slang, derived Russian (like "baboochka"), and words invented by Burgess himself."
    – Beofett
    Mar 31, 2011 at 0:45
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    Soma is not a made up word. It is taken from Sanskrit, referring to a ritual drink.
    – Adele- Nexus of Potlucks
    Jan 29, 2012 at 17:40
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In Foundation and Empire (1952) Asimov use the word Galaxy as an obscenity, often emphasizing the middle syllable (gal-LAX-y). While not a fictional word, it is a fictional obscenity.

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Larry Niven was using the term "TANJ" in the Known Space universe in the mid to late 60's.

TANJ -> There Aint no Justice

I'm sure there are works prior to that though.

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  • Is that profane or just an expression?
    – Omar Kooheji
    Mar 29, 2011 at 21:15
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    It is profanity. Niven used it in place of actual swearing.
    – user1027
    Mar 29, 2011 at 23:00
  • yah. It's used mainly as a replacement of where in current western culture you'd say "darn", "christ", or "sh*t".
    – jwenting
    Mar 31, 2011 at 10:32
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In Glory Road Robert Heinlein does actually discuss the use of profanity, and uses a word he considers profane.

Image of text from a Google Books search on "Glory Road." The text appears below.

That is the last word I am going to set down in a language that doesn't fit our alphabet. I had several more lessons, and won't mention them either, and from then on we spoke this lingo, except when I was forced to span gaps by asking in English. It is a language rich in profanity and in words for making love, and ricer than English in some technical subjects - but with surprising holes in it. There is no word for "lawyer" for example.

Courtesy of Google Book Search

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2

Mork and Mindy had Shazbott that's 1978. Probably not the oldest but definitely an example of it.

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1

In "I Will Fear No Evil" Heinlein used the word "kark" as an expletive. Now a Google search reveals that it is all over the Star Wars universe. What gives?

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In Triplanetary, Ralph Kinnison describes an incompetent official (to his face) as lacking "the brains that God gave bastard geese in Ireland". One of the more original bits of invective.

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Star Wars (at least the extended universe) has a fairly robust set of profanity.

Therefore it was ~1977 at the latest.

I'm sure it was earlier, though, just can't think of any examples.

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  • We don't see it in Ep IV... and in fact, I don't recall it until Ep V or later... and not in the movies, at all, until the release of Ep I. BSG, however, had several choice substitute words (Frak being the most common).
    – aramis
    Mar 30, 2011 at 21:31
  • The novelizations, however, certainly do.
    – Jeff
    Mar 31, 2011 at 13:36
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    But the novels also never have any sort of consistency, between two authors, you'll have two different sets of profanity. My favorite was when someone (the author of Death Star) used the word "milk" as a profanity.
    – dkuntz2
    Apr 1, 2011 at 4:26
  • Many of the SW novels aren't cannon, either...
    – aramis
    Apr 1, 2011 at 9:22
  • The SW novels are all canon, unless they've contradicted the movies. They are C or S canon, as seen here: scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/1806/…
    – Jeff
    Apr 1, 2011 at 13:07

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