FRAK my NANOO NANOO

[RobertScorpio]

Alien phrases, like FRAK and NANOO NANOO, can sometimes live beyond their years. Before nuBSG came around, and reignited the use of FRAK among the masses, I had been using it ever since the oldBSG. Its a good replacement for F-CK and can be used in all the ways George Carlin used F-CK.

Go Frak yourself
What the FRAK?
FRAK you...
You wanna Frak with me...
This movie fraking sucks...

Nanoo nanoo is another I never stopped using long after Mork freed that egg and went home.

Can you think of other 'alien' words like those two that you can hear as part of our 'collective culture'?

Rob

 

[T'Baio]

To this day, I still think "frak" is a perfect example of how utterly retarded our culture is.

Fuck is this horrible word that everyone is so horrified by, and if you put it on national TV you can actually be charged millions of dollars. But create a different word, that's similar in alliteration, that everyone knows is a replacement for and means exactly the same thing as fuck, and we're all good and it's cute. Cognitively, it registers as the same thing!

Western culture is so fucked up.

 

[Brian]

Don't you mean "frakked up"?

 

[Sheep]

"Frak" is part of our culture? Um, no. Not even close. 95% of the population would look at you like you were some kind of weirdo and wonder why you were saying "frak" instead of "fuck" if you used "frak" in the intended context.

 

[Nick Ryder]

For a while I liked using Farscape's made up swears.

Frell, Dren, Hezmana, YOTZ!

Although I do sometimes use some comic book inspired ones, like

Flonq - as in - I hate being stuck in this flonqing desert!

Then there are the Snoop Dogg swears like Shiznit - we used to use that one a lot at the Target I worked at. Its the best 'shit' replacement ever!

But yes Frak has what George Carlin says is that nice visceral K sound

 

[Deckerd]

Kaplah

and before everyone starts riffling through their well-thumbed Klingon dictionaries, yes I know it's not spelt like that but that's how it's used.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Western culture is so fucked up.

Frelling right, Jack!

 

[Chaos Descending]

"Frak" is part of our culture? Um, no. Not even close.

No one said that "frak" was "part of our culture". However, most of the TV viewing audience in the English speaking word has heard it, or heard of it, or has an inkling of what it means.

95% of the population would look at you like you were some kind of weirdo and wonder why you were saying "frak" instead of "fuck" if you used "frak" in the intended context.

Also nonsense. People are used to the word "Friggin'" to mean "fucking" in the adjective sense. For example, "pass me that friggin' hammer". People who didn't know what "frak" meant would probably be smart enough to figure that you just wanted to say "fuck" without saying "fuck", and this leads back to T'Baio's very astute analysis of the situation. Using bad words is apparently bad, but using a word that MEANS the bad word without actually using the bad word, that's ok.

It's stupid.

 

[Klaus]

I also have been using frak since oBSG, even though I reviled the show lol... and I use the conehead word "mepsk" a lot as well, indicating frustration.

 

[Chaos Descending]

I thought it was just "mebs"?

 

[RobertScorpio]

Frak is also one of those words, that when you use it instead of F-ck, and someone has never heard the word Frak before, they will 'get' the meaning.

As for Western Civilization being retarded? Sorry, but having survived quadruple bypass years ago, I am thankful for our 'retarded' advancements in medicine, among other things.

Rob

 

[Chaos Descending]

The "culture" is retarded, not the "civilization".

Geez, people, specific words means specific things, you know!

 

[T'Baio]

Apparently, civilization hasn't allowed us all to catch up with that reading thing.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

I use Star Trek words a lot, particularly expletives, from both Tv and novel Trek, or sometimes Farscape or Babylon Five words. Mostly for my own amusement at first, but it became habit.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

95% of the population would look at you like you were some kind of weirdo and wonder why you were saying "frak" instead of "fuck" if you used "frak" in the intended context.

But a U.S. Congressman said "frak" yesterday, and no one would look at him as if he's a weirdo, right...?

Right?

Oh. Never mind.

 

[Mistral]

Frak isn't stupid-it's shiny! Hezmana, what's the deal here? Utilizing slang in one form or another has a fine tradition in this country-and in others. I don't think the source is important-only whether it catches on or not. In fact, I think it is a part of human nature to alter and twist the language to suit our whims. Any new word that feels fun on the tongue will get used. I think it tips the pleasure receptors in our brain to use such. This dren about Western Civilization being frelled up is just that. It may be messed up but I don't think it's because of language usage. T'Baio takes the negative stance on everything so don't reflect on his words too closely-you'll only get depressed. Whatever the problems with our culture, utilizing fun slang words is hardly the source of the difficulty, and it's silly to think so. Shazbot!

 

[Too Much Fun]

I hate all these 'substitute' swear words. I think the worst is the Chinese profanity on "Firefly", which was cute at first, but quickly began to irritate the hell out of me. "Frak" is pretty annoying too, but at least it's funny sometimes. I laughed right along with the chief when one of his soldiers called him 'motherfrakker' . The use of the word as a replacement for 'fuck' just comes across as corny most of the time, though.

The only case of me using a substitute word is 'Ford' from "Brave New World" just as an inside joke with a friend of mine, because we think it's really funny to say stuff like, "Thank Ford", "For Ford's sake" substituting 'Ford' for God or the Lord.

 

[T'Baio]

Frak isn't stupid-it's shiny! Hezmana, what's the deal here? Utilizing slang in one form or another has a fine tradition in this country-and in others. I don't think the source is important-only whether it catches on or not. In fact, I think it is a part of human nature to alter and twist the language to suit our whims. Any new word that feels fun on the tongue will get used. I think it tips the pleasure receptors in our brain to use such. This dren about Western Civilization being frelled up is just that. It may be messed up but I don't think it's because of language usage. T'Baio takes the negative stance on everything so don't reflect on his words too closely-you'll only get depressed. Whatever the problems with our culture, utilizing fun slang words is hardly the source of the difficulty, and it's silly to think so. Shazbot!

Again...I said culture, not civilization.

Secondly, my point isn't it being retarded that people like BSG and say frak, my point is that it's ridiculous that a network can be fined millions of dollars for broadcasting "fuck" because of how offensive it is, but we just create a new word that everyone knows means the same thing and that's okay. It doesn't make any sense and is pointlessly silly.

 

[Too Much Fun]

Wow, I didn't know about the fining thing. That's crazy. I really enjoy how a lot of shows are given the freedom to use the word 'fuck' as much as they want. While there are some that seem to just use it for shock value or to be 'cool', many others are able to use it to make the dialog sound more natural and set up effective humourous moments that wouldn't work as well without it.

I can understand wanting to keep it off the 'mainstream' networks with 'family programming' like ABC, NBC, CBS, etc., but I don't see why specialty channels like SciFi should be kept from using it. I like how HBO and Showtime can include such language as much as they want.

And this isn't a new thing. I've been watching "Dream On" (1990-1996) and even back then television characters were using 'fuck' frequently and the show was better for it. It's a welcome presence on "Weeds" as well.

 

[The Laughing Vulcan]

I still use the occasional 'smeghead', but given what smeg is, it isn't exactly a made up swear. Just an obscure real one popularised by a sci-fi show.