Sci-Fi Nonce Word Profanity

[Christopher]

No, it's not strictly realistic -- and it maybe brings up larger problems, like "why exactly would they use Mandarin just for swearing," and "where are all the Asian people" -- but it wouldn't be realistic to expect the cast to speak in actual Chinglish. But it does nicely address the issue of delivering dialogue with a suitably pungent feel without trying to make up a bunch of variously-inventive parallels to English curses.

Okay, maybe "hated" was a strong word. I understand the reasons for it. But it was rather contrived.

Hmm... Maybe the characters were really speaking Chinese the whole time, but the magic translators in our TV sets shut off when they started cursing.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Could it be that the Chinese were dominant in the Alliance and so those on the edge and frontier chose to emphasize Western culture in defiance? So the majority of the time they stuck with speaking English though Chinese would come out in emotional outbursts? I know there are unfortunate implications with that but could that fit with what was seen?

 

[BigJake]

Hmm... Maybe the characters were really speaking Chinese the whole time, but the magic translators in our TV sets shut off when they started cursing.

It's just crazy enough to work...

 

[publiusr]

One of my favorite made up words was in Batman Beyond--a synonym for "Cool!" Shway!

 

[AgentCoop]

I'm no linguist, but I thought the way Firefly handled this was brilliant. But then, I'm biased. I think just about everything Joss Whedon does is brilliant.

 

[E-DUB]

A friend of mine and I actually used "melon farmers" at work where actual swearing would be frowned on. He took to using it when his kids were around. The kids were all "What's daddy got against farmers?"

 

[AgentCoop]

^And let's not forget the classic "Yippee-Ki-Yay, Mister Falcon!"