History Main / NarrativeProfanityFilter

* In Creator/KurtVonnegut's ''Hocus Pocus'':

* In the Louise Fitzhugh book ''Sport'', the (child) characters are described as using the worst language they can think of to describe bad situations, and, when even this isn't enough, substituting the word "blank". Naturally "blank" is the only blanking expletive that ever appears in the blanking book.

* In "The Ghost in the Third Row" by Creator/BruceCoville, Nine and Chris are trapped in a very small, very dark room, and don't know what to do. Chris points out that "being picky won't get them anywhere." Nine tells the reader that "actually, that was the meaning of what she said. Her actual words would probably burn the page."

* Rafał Kosik did this a few times in his ''Felix, Net & Nika'' YoungAdults books. Very few characters use profanities, but when they are, those are [[ClusterFBomb Cluster F Bombs]]. Only all profanities are replaced with "''beeeep''".

* Used throughout ''The Devil in Vienna'' which is written as protagonist Inge's diary. She says Seyss-Inquart's name sounds like "a certain dirty word", but fails to specify, mentions her mother saying "a word she hardly ever uses" and uses the old standby, "only he didn't say...".

** His novel ''Four-Day Planet'' includes the following lines, as recounted by the novel's first-person narrator, a young journalist [[note]]"etaoin shrdlu" is a reasonable approximation of the dozen most commonly used letters in the English language in the order of their appearance[[/note]]:

** ''Police Operation'' has the 'he cursed' variation, as a very nasty animal attacks.
** ''Time Crime'' has this: "Tortha Karf[[note]]Paratime Police Chief[[/note]] began, alphabetically, to blaspheme every god he had ever heard of." This is a universe with a ''lot'' of alternate timelines.

** In ''Wilkin's Tooth'', Buster and his gang used purple, orange, blank language--and they wouldn't be half as menacing if they ''actually'' used 'orange', 'purple' or 'blanking'.

* In ''Literature/Scaramouche'', almost every sentence uttered by Danton features at least one (blank.)

** This appears about 50 times a book, [[SirSwearsALot usually with Ron doing it]] (indeed, "Ron swore", often "loudly", might be the CatchPhrase of the whole series), usually followed by Hermione or his mother berating him for it. It's quite effective--readers get the sense that Harry and company are normal teenagers who curse and make rude hand gestures, without it interfering with the story. There's more directly-reported swearing in the later books, reflecting both the DarkerAndEdgier subject matter and the increased age of the characters and readers. Sometimes Rowling makes it easy and just [[CurseCutShort cuts off the dialogue]] (As in, "You--").

'''Barney:''' Who the kiss are you?

* One of the books in the ''[[Literature/ThePigman Pigman]]'' series has the narrator explain that he will use #$%& for swears, and @#$%& for really bad swears. He then praises the usefulness of this scheme because the reader likely has a better imagination than he does.

'''Adult Ralphie:''' ''(voiceover)'' Only I didn't say fudge. I said ''the'' word. The big one. The queen mother of dirty words. The "F-dash-dash-dash" word.

* In the second ''VideoGame/AdvanceWars'' game for the Game Boy Advance, in the Green Earth campaign mission 'To the Rescue', a Green Earth soldier reports to CO Eagle that the Orange Star force bearing supplies for them had been besieged by the Black Hole army, and had rejected the latter's recommendation to surrender. The exact wording of the response provided by CO Sami was apparently less than civil...
-->'''Soldier:''' Commander! Black Hole has demanded that Orange Star surrender.\\
'''Eagle:''' Hm... I believe Sami's commanding the Orange Star forces... What was her reply?\\
'''Soldier:''' Well, in a word, she turned them down flat.\\
'''Eagle:''' What exactly did she say?\\
'''Soldier:''' Um... I'd rather not say. It wasn't the most... polite response.\\
'''Eagle:''' Be that as it may.\\
'''Soldier:''' Er... How about I write it down on this paper, and then you can read it?\\
'''Eagle:''' Hm... ... ...? Ha... Ha ha ha ha!!!\\
'''Soldier:''' Commander?\\
'''Eagle:''' She certainly is outspoken! It would be a shame to let her get captured by Black Hole.\\
'''Soldier:''' Er... Yes, sir, it would.

-->"You spit foul recriminations and vicious calumny. Ladies faint dead away and gentlemen stagger under the barrage. Your target runs, weeping, with her hands over her ears. You follow her! Your tirade continues in the street, where hansoms careen hastily off and urchins fall from rooftops. You pick up your victim's dropped letters and wave them as a final salute. You are spent."

* ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'':

* In ''WebAnimation/{{Underverse}}, we have [=Fresh!Sans=] who can cause this with his mere presence as shown when he's near [[SirSwearsALot Fell!Sans]] as all of Fell's swears get replaced with [[GoshDangItAllToHeck "Fresh" substitutes]] much to the latter's chagrin.

--> '''Butcher:''' Oh come on. She gets to &?!#ing swear but we don't! How is that any -ing fair?

* ''Fanfic/UnleashingOfADarkNight'': Done in spectacular fashion after Atari makes a failed attempt to fight the Metal Were as the latter walks off, not interested in the slightest, after [[CurbStompBattle effortlessly taking down]] [[OriginalCharacter Tomo]] [[CurbstompBattle for the first time]].
--> ''But the Metal Were left anyway, leaving her to shout one anger-fueled obscenity that [[CoverInnocentEyesAndEars Sonic had to cover Tails's ears in order to prevent him from hearing]].''

* In ''FanFic/AndAllTheStarsBurnedBright'', when Admiral Taylor informs Barbara Havers that Starfleet will ''not'' [[spoiler:be launching a rescue for the missing black ops team that includes her captain-slash-lover]]:

** It showed up now and again in the ''[[Literature/TheChroniclesOfNarnia Narnia]]'' books also. From ''The Horse and His Boy'':

** And in ''Voyage of the Dawn Treader'':

* Creator/CSLewis uses the word "bucking" in ''That Hideous Strength'', where a more literal reportage of the events might be a word which begins with "F".

-->Our conversation was brief, but memorable. My contribution consisted of this-- ''([[OhCrap silent, gape-mouthed look of panic]])'' --while hers consisted of a short, pungent phrase indicating that she had confused me with {{Oedipus|Complex}}.

** The story "The Affair of Miss Finney" by Ann Margaret Lewis has this: "Jumping to his feet, Hamming spat a word toward the young lady that I shall not record in this memoir. It was so vulgar that everyone froze with shock."