I'm not a big fan of swearing, which is why I've tried my best to keep it out of the comic for so long, but when I originally wrote Jacob saying "oh crap" it just didn't seem to convey how absolutely screwed he knows he is.
Let's face it: people swear. However, some movies have a tendency to overdo it. Sometimes it can be pulled off, and sometimes it just sounds stupid. The Precision F Strike is the opposite of this. Put simply, it's where swearing has been used effectively to add weight to the sentence. The most common way of doing this is when a normally non-swearing character swears, meaning that things have just gotten really fucking serious.
Another variant is when a movie limits its swearing in order to keep from getting an R rating, and so is forced to place it very strategically. If a movie uses the F word more than two or three times, it can easily get an R rating. If it's used up to two or three times, each in a non-sexual context, it usually stays PG-13.
Also, when Unusual Euphemism is normally in play in a work, having "real" oaths appear can have the same effect.
Due to the nature of language, this trope very quickly leads to Values Dissonance depending on cultural differences. "Bloody", "cunt" and "twat"*
"wanker," "fanny," "hobknocker"
, just to name a few words, have very different connotations on both sides of the Atlantic. And that's just the differences within one single language. (For example: In Dutch, no one would bat an eye at the English "fuck"*
Dutch puritans will forgo this in exchange for increased use of "shit"
, "shit"*
Is considered only slightly more offensive than saying "crap" or "oh, poop" in english
, "hell"*
Some Dutch Christians will forgo this in exchange for increased use of "shit"
or even "cunt"*
Dutch puritans will forgo this in exchange for increased use of "shit"
. The Dutch word for "cancer" (kanker), however, is considered the single most offensive curse word in the entire language, and will never be heard on television unless it's... well, a Precision K Strike, so to speak.) While like many other English words, the word "fucking" exists with only a minor variation in German (ficken), it's only used as a verb and almost never as a curse word, which results in quite a number of blind idiot translations that just sound weird. (The word "shit" (Scheiße) and its variations are almost always used in exactly the same way as the word "fuck" in English.)
In some languages, however, expletives do not actually exist, or are so uncommonly used and/or offensive that they are not allowed on television/radio/etc. Seemingly equivalent words may be used similarly, but without the impact of an actual expletive (for example, the direct Japanese equivalent of "shit" (kuso) is often used in children's shows by child characters without raising alarm) These languages may have levels of politeness which serve the same purpose (again, Japanese), and translations often take advantage of the dub/sub language's expletives to give the same feeling. For subtitles, this crosses over into Spice Up The Subtitles, unless the expletive used by the translator actually is said in the dialogue, as is known to happen. Intersection of Sophisticated as Hell and Conservation of Ninjutsu; related to OOC Is Serious Business.
Compare Atomic F-Bomb, Minor Insult Meltdown, Quote Swear Unquote, This Is for Emphasis, Bitch!.
Contrast with the Cluster F-Bomb.
Due to the nature of the trope, the following examples will contain swearing. Please don't be a Bluenose.
Examples
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Anime and Manga
The dub of Witchblade had a good example of this when "things get pretty fucking serious": Masane Amada, at the end of the next to last episode says "LET'S BLOW SOME SHIT UP!" It could've come off as Narm by itself, but not only does it signify the shit has hit the fan (and how!), the very statement has actual plot relevance.
One may be found in the first season finale of Full Metal Panic!, delivered by The Stoic Sagara no less.
In the original Japanese, he uses "kusoyarō" (lit. translation: shitguy).
In the English dub, he uses shithead.
In the Hungarian dub, he uses "szemétláda" (lit. translation: dustbin*
it's a low-level insult - this language is capable of MUCH WORSE
).
In a subversion, he can be found throwing Cluster F Bombs all over the place in the Boot Camp Episode of Fumoffu. Of course, it's implied that he doesn't even know what 99% of all the swear words and language he was using really means - he borrowed the handbook containing the lines (most of which are actual quotes from Full Metal Jacket!) from Mao.
In a chapter of the second manga, Sigma, Tessa gets a really surprising one, complete with rude gesture
The Reveal of Distressed Damsel "Hummingbird's" true persona (or is it?) in Dead Man Wonderland: "You fucking moron!" "That kind of bloodied face doesn't turn me on!" She killed her father, claimed he raped her, and her brother took the fall for it. She is getting better, though.
In a recent chapter of Bakuman。, Mashiro, the soft-spoken artist of the Ashirogi duo, exclaims "DON'T YOU FUCK WITH ME" when he finds out about Nanamine using the older manga artists as pawns in his Evil Plan
Black Lagoon is filled to the brim with Cluster F Bombing from its Heroic Sociopath protagonists. Rock, the Wide-Eyed Idealist and Non-Action Guy is the only one of the protagonists who doesn't regularly swear. Which means that in the few times that he does let loose with the F Bomb himself (such as during his confrontation with Revy in Episode 7 or when he sees Yukio being abused during the Yakuza arc), it signifies that he is well and truly pissed.
Perhaps the one time he didn't drop the F Bomb in anger, he dropped it in sadistic Poetic Justice. It was also his first Crowning Moment of Awesome. He found a way to make a PT Boat take down an attack chopper, and he sent the pilots to hell with these words:
YEAH! YOU GOT FUCKED!
There are a couple in the sub for Death Note, but the one that stands out is Light's reaction to getting shot: "You... asshole! Matsuda! Who do you think you're shooting at? Don't fuck with me!"
In the fansub, after L reveals himself to Light, he reacts with "Fuck, he got me!" A great translation due to this being the first time Light finds himself emotionally overwhelmed.
Finally, there is the scene in which Soichiro reveals that he knows Mello's real name, causing Mello to respond in the following fashion.
Mello: Oh, fuck. How did he manage to figure that one out?
During Misato's "inspirational" speech to Shinji: "So fucking what if I'm not you!?"
And the Evangelion 2.22 dub adds another example, this time courtesy of Mari: "Just... fucking... die!!"
Don't forget her "POINT BLANK, SHITHEAD!"
The original series has this exchange in the dub of Episode 15, bleeped out in the TV broadcast:
Misato: I thought joining Nerv, would be a way to sever those ties and then it turned out that my father was with Nerv. So I tried to bury all of my feelings, by swearing to avenge myself against the Angels.
Kaji: Choosing that path, was your decision. You don't have to apologise to anyone.
Misato: Don't bullshit me, Kaji! I just turned tail and ran! It was just an escape, from the real world and my father.
In Digimon Tamers, Beelzemon shouts "I'll save you if its the last thinking I freakin' do!" when rescuing Jeri. For a kid's show, that's about as intense as the swearing can get, so in context it hits pretty hard.
At least one Fan Sub of Gurren Lagann replaced the usual "Who the hell do you think I am?" with "WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK WE ARE?!" during an especially epic scene — namely, when Simon and Viral team up in the Gurren Lagann, blast into outer space, bitch out the Anti-Spiral armada gathered around Earth, and then blow almost all of it up through the sheer awesome of their presence alone.*
To be fair, the "-te yagaru" suffix occasionally added to the Catch Phrase is allegedly equal to an F-bomb.
Actually, the enemy armada is destroyed because they show up. Not because they just are there. Apparently, Mugann-armadas are pathetic.
In Episode 2 of Sonic X's Japanese dub, Sonic says "Shit! Let's go." right in front of Cream. He also used "Damn!" in another episode.
Denzel's "SON OF A BITCH!" line in Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, after Bahamut Sin is summoned.
In Appleseed Ex Machina, Briareos says something like, "Don't fuck with me!" when confronting Kestner.
It's ironic that Ex Machina has such little swearing; the dub of the original Appleseed (the OVA, not the movie), took the Cluster F-Bomb approach, leading fans to affectionately refer to it as 'Fuckin' Apple Fuckin' Seed'.
Also, Commander Lance says "Watch your language!" after Deunan says "hell" in the presence of Nike.
In the FUNimation version of Episode 182 (even in original dub), King Kai is arguing with West Kai over the outcome of a battle in the tournament, and King Kai says "Just wait and see you fat fucking half-pint!" In Ocean dub this is changed to "fast-talking half-pint".
In episode 48 of Rave Master, in at least one fansub, when Seig Hart decides to kill Elie because she can use Atherion, Haru says:
Haru:Fuck you! [Everyone turns and looks at him] Haru: I'll fight you! Don't lay a hand on Elie! Get the hell off me I'll fucking kill you! COME ON!
In the English dub of Naruto, a slightly milder version of this trope was employed during the usual monologue that plays over the next episode preview. The preview was for the episode where Kakashi fights Orochimaru, and Kakashi says that he will drag Orochimaru down to Hell. Considering that this was the version shown on Cartoon Network, it was pretty poignant.
A similar instance occurs in the English dub preview, again on Cartoon Network, for Sasuke's fight with Gaara. Naruto, frustrated with Sakura's lack of concern for him after his fight with Neji, shouts, "Ah to Hell with Sasuke! I won!"
In the uncut English dub when Naruto meets Jiraiya, one of his lines is "I'm a GOD DAMN SAGE!"
There's also Sakura calling Naruto a jackass in one episode, this time in the broadcast version.
In certain subs, When Naruto is fighting Gaara, the former wakes the later from his artificial slumber with a boot to the head and an aptly-placed "Wake the fuck up!"
"Yo Aloe Vera! Where the FUCK is Sasuke?!"
In many Japanese subs, the sadomasochistic Jashinist member of Akatsuki, Hidan, is depicted as a very rude and foul-mouthed man. Almost every sentence that spews from his face are littered with "fuck", "hell", "shit", etc. When the episodes featuring him were brought over to America, however, swears were not as generously sprinkled in as many fans would have thought it would be. He is still retains his bad temper and insolent tone, but never drops "F bombs" in the English dub. He does, however, say "hell" a few times, but, hey, you should take what they give...
Col. Mustang: I'm not chasing [the Elrics] because I was commanded to. I'm doing it because I'm pissed. Now why the hell did you two run away without asking for my help first?!
In the manga, chapter 14. Ed says to Al that he's lucky to have a big body. Al, one of the most soft-spoken characters of the series, responds with this particularly powerful retort:
Al: I never asked for this damn body!!
Also, Ed's line to the Big Bad in the final battle.
Ed: Get up, you miserable fuck. It's time you learned why you're not in our league!
In episode 5 of Brotherhood, Mustang is informed by Hughes and Armstrong of the threat Scar poses to State Alchemists - and realizes that Ed and Al are in the city and have no warning. His reaction?
Mustang: Shit.
The Hungarian dub of Soul Eater is already loaded with pretty vulgar language, but Maka still manages to pull one off before her last fight with Medusa, when she says "I'm gonna kick ... her ASS!" Due to the nature of the Hungarian language and the sounding of the word, that one sentence was spoken with an incredibly powerful impact, making Maka at least 20% more badass.
So does Kid as Ashura awakens. Countless uses of the word "shit" are littered throughout the series, too, so it can be difficult to single out precision strikes.
He actually did it before. In chapter 392, upon seeing the captains attack and almost kill Momo when under the effects of Aizen's Kyouka Suigetsu, thinking they're stabbing Aizen instead, he started screaming at them: "Guys... GUYS, WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?!"
Chapter 403 gives us Ichigo's response to Aizen's new form. "What...the fuck...is that..."
In Japanese episode 14 of the original series of Pokémon — YES, Pokémon — during Ash's rematch with Lt. Surge, Ash is able to figure out Raichu's weakness and points this out to the Gym Leader. In response to this, before commanding Raichu to let loose a stadium-destroying Thunderbolt, he yells "GOD-DAMN!" in complete English. See for yourself!
In the English dub, Diamond and Pearl episode 2 has James saying, "That's why she doesn't know a bloody thing about us, there's no Sinnoh Team Rocket branch!"
In episode 2 of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Haruhi forces the Computer Research Society President to abuse Mikuru against his will as Kyon takes pictures. When Haruhi tries to blackmail the club based on the "evidence" she has, the other members defend him. Haruhi is quick to respond (a crying shame the actual word got bleeped) by saying, "Then I'll tell everyone at school that all you geeks ganged up on her and fucked her!" The club is aghast at Haruhi's language (she swears in the Japanese version too; why else would there be a bleep midway through her line?) and her threat. Averted in the light novel when she simply says, "I'll say that the whole club gang-raped her!"
Speaking of the light novels, in Disappearance, upon learning Yuki Nagato is to be terminated for interfering with reality, Kyon basically tells her, "Tell them to go fuck themselves!" However, the translation, as always, watered down the language, and he instead says, "Tell them to go suck it." The anime adaptation (English dub quote below) has Kyon say this in response to Yuki's news:
Kyon: Then you can TELL them to go to HELL!!!!!!
In the dub of Samurai Champloo (which has a decent amount of profanity) Jin swears only one time, which is oddly enough for his Establishing Character Moment, when confronting the Yagyu guards as they are about to dispatch an innocent peasant:
Jin: To serve your lord and do his bidding, is that honorable? Yagyu guard: [scoffs] Of course it is. Jin: Even if that lord is an unimportant piece of shit? (NOTE: When it was shown on [adult swim], the final word was tastefully "scratched" out in an instance of Sound Effect Bleep.)
In the 23rd episode, the American Admiral says "Fuck them!" in response to the town leader's peace negotiation.
In the final episodes of The Big O (a series with little to no strong language), the normally stuffy and dignified Norman screams “Sons of bitches!” just before going Guns Akimbo on a swarm of marauding robots.
In the commentary for the English dub of Mnemosyne, Jamie Marchi, the voice actor of Mimi, laments the inability to say "fuck" in anime where it would go perfectly with the mouth flaps, but can't because of the show's rating. She signs out at the end of the commentary as such:
"And I'm Jamie Marchi. Fuck!"
In the dub of the anime itself, Psycho for Hire Laura belts one out when she bombs Rin's apartment, loudly declaring "MERRY FUCKIN' CHRISTMAS!"
Ahiru: And this happens after we intended to help someone.
Ink:: No shit.
The English dub of Welcome to the NHK has some infrequent F-bombs sprinkled throughout, mostly uttered by Satou, but his use of it during the climax of the final episode is especially spectacular and deserves mention.
Satou: I'll show you, Yamazaki! I'm about to die saving the girl I love! How do you like that? That's not just dramatic! IT'S FUCKING DRAMATIC!!!
Hitomi manages to get in a single F-bomb to punctuate her crossing the Despair Event Horizon in episode 13.
Hitomi: He may have said I was important to him, but in the end, I know he doesn't need someone useless like me. Why would he? He's so fucking perfect he can do anything he wants all by himself!
Yamazaki: Satou, you're not listening! I'm telling you the dialogue you wrote for the heroine in this scene doesn't work at all.
Satou: You think so?
Yamazaki: Not even close!
Satou: I dunno, it seems fine to me.
Yamazaki: That's because you're a fucking idiot.
While Gundam is usually quite careful with these, the English dub of Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny had at least one scene where this slipped through.
Meyrin: All units, prepare for underwater combat!
Rey: Underwater combat, huh? Guess Beam Weapons are out of the question.
Lunamaria: Underwater combat? Oh, fuck.
In Phase 12 of Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny, as well as the first TV Movie, Shinn said "Aww, shit!" when a Zamza-Zah grabs one of Impulse's legs.
In the English dub of Gunslinger Girl: Il Teatrino, when a cornered FRF Anti-Villain discovers that his captors are Child Soldiers, he utters the following before passing out (especially hard-hitting coming from a terrorist):
"This is such a fucked up world."
In the Sailor Moon anime, Sailor Moon uses some sort of signature attack to destroy countless monsters. Some yell something out when defeated. In Episode 21 of Sailor Moon S, however, when Fish Eye's servant Tobihaneru is destroyed, he seems to shout out "YOU MOTHERF*CKER!"
Although it also seems as though he's saying "Long live the circus!" instead.
Makoto/Sailor Jupiter says "Shit!" at least twice in The Movie of Sailor Moon R (including once when the Sailor Senshi are ambushed on all sides by Kisenian's troops) if you translate "Kuso!" like some of the more extreme translators translate it (certainly not the case with Geneon, but you get the point).
Here's the first instance of the F bomb in Tokyopop's translation of Lupin III:
Lupin: No luck with the ladies? Experimentee: What the fuck?
To many, Ichiro's most memorable line is when there's a big Theme Music Power-Up, and just when the song's about to reach it's climax, we get this gem:
Ichiro: Fuck it. I don't wanna.
The fact that he speaks in his usual perpetual calm monotone just makes it even more unpredictable and well timed.
In the Pioneer dub of AKIRA when Tetsuo is knocked off his motorcycle near the beginning he shouts "Aw fuck!"
Also during the scene where Kei is running from the police there is some graffiti that reads "fuck you".
An earlier scene shows the F bomb and other profanity briefly on the door leading out of the Harukiya bar.
On Nichijou's 9th episode, there's a skit which has Yuuko waiting for her food for quite a while, and about an hour of waiting, she loses it and yells "GODDAMN!!!".
Any time Akane swears in normal mode (you know, when she's more polite than in Kampfer mode) in Kämpfer has to be notable. From the ADV Films (by that point rebranded as Sentai Filmworks) subtitled version, she and Mikoto say, "Damn, she's cute!" in unison about Shizuku in episode 10, and at the end of episode 11, after Mikoto kisses Natsuru, Akane yells, "What are you doing? Damn you!" before kissing Natsuru herself.
The very ladylike Fukiko from Oniisama e... drops a magnificent "You shameless BITCH" during her own birthday party, when Rei presses one of her Berserk Buttons without realizing it.
Not to mention, Mariko and Tomoko refer to Aya and her Girl Posse as "bitches" more than once.
Two notable cases come up during Berserk, which is hard to spot at first since the characters are so use to dishing out chains of cuss words (especially Guts). One was found in Guts iconic Screw Destiny speech to the Skull Knight, while the other was told by Guts right before finally defeating Bishop Mozgus:
— Guts: "When you meet your god, TELL HIM TO LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE!!"
Comic Books
Alias, by Brian Michael Bendis was the first series of Marvel's mature readers MAX imprint, and indeed was part of why the imprint was formed. The word Fuck is the very first of the series, in the first panel, and is repeated twice again on the first page. The rest of the series is absolutely rife with swearing, but the early introduction of the word is quite effective.
An example that doesn't actually show the words occurs during the "Fernus" JusticeLeague storyline. At its climax, Fernus, aka the Superpowered Evil Side Martian Manhunter never knew he had, uses his vast Psychic Powers to launch nukes all over the world. While the League desperately tries to prevent a nuclear cataclysm, Fernus makes the following observation (not exact words):
They've managed to stop a few of the missiles. But there are many more left. And Superman has just uttered his first real swear word in years. That has to count for something.
During the Funny Animal miniseries, Captain Carrot and the Final Ark!, superheroic turtle Fastback uses a lot of Gosh Dang It to Heck! type expletives. When fellow superhero Pig Iron asks him what exactly "shoot a mile" means, Fastback is interrupted during an explanation of expletives by an appearance of the villain Frogzilla, causing him to shout out a (censored) example.
In the SLG comics continuation of Gargoyles, the normally sweet and polite Angela lets out a "YOU BASTARD!" When she sees Thailog standing over her father's limp body while brandishing a bloody blade. Underscored by the fact that she just happens to be dressed like Dorothy Gale from The Wizard of Oz at the time.
In Preacher, the Anti-Villain Hoover has been struggling with being a bluenose who can't bring himself to drop the f-bomb. When Starr kills Featherstone, he finally musters the rage to say the word.
Earlier in the series, a rather meek man (described as "the unluckiest cop in the world") is partnered with a BadassCowboy Cop. On discovering that his partner is a homosexual masochist, he undergoes "the first time in my life I ever swore":
Are you sure you're not just fucked in the head?
Used in Cerebus. Jaka rejecting Cerebus in favor of her husband causes him to utter the word "shit" for the first time in the comic's run.
Powerpuff Girls #16 had a story with the demonic figure Him in a story with the malapropism title "Hell Toupee."
Bone, as an all-ages comic is chemically free of swear words... with one exception. When discovering Phoney Bone's "Dragonslayer" bluff, Lucius Down asks him "What the hell do you think you're doing?" Made all the more notable in that he's uncharacteristically calm during the entire scene.
Castle Waiting is very sparse with the swear words, though some characters occasionally make use of a bit of Symbol Swearing. There are, however, a couple of uncensored "Damn"s, the most noticeable coming from Lady Jain after a Freudian Slip has caused her to blow her secret.
Scott Pilgrim - When someone swears, you know it's serious.
Oddly enough, with all of the taboos Sin City deals with, swear words are usually PG-13 rated and sparse. There has only been one F-bomb in the entire series: "Make a missing person's case out of this fucker!" when The Colonel is killed.
Played for laughs in an issue of Valiant's Super Mario Bros. series. No, really. Princess Toadstool finds herself on a magic carpet, rising higher, and higher. Her reaction? "Oh, %#@*!!!" And then she does it again upon being discovered by some Pidgits.
In Lucifer, the angel Duma manages to achieve all that a Precision F-Strike could hope for - a chilling dawning realization that the entire world has changed and it's never going to go back to the way it was - by saying the word No. It helps that he's at least ten thousand million years old and has never spoken before.
Fan Works
The Ranma/Teen Titans crossover duology Dark Titans uses a Precision F-Strike as a Crowning Moment of Awesome; near the end of The Titans and the Lost Boy, Brother Blood has a laser blade to Kasumi's neck, and has ordered the Nerima Wrecking Crew and his rebellious students — including some of the Nerima regulars, themselves recruited earlier in the story — to kill the Titans or else. Both sides appear to be hopelessly stuck... until Kasumi quietly calls Blood... something... and shocks him so badly that she's able to break his grip and judo throw him.
My Immortal: "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING YOU MOTHERFUKERS!" Shocking because it's the Dumbeldore'sIncoming Ham moment.
If you can get the DC Nation universe version of Connor Hawke to the point of swear words, it's usually one of those.
For the most part, the Shocker fan fic Polarity avoids any swearing worse than "damn" or "crap." Even after fighting zombies, avoiding heroes, brawling with villains, and getting his ass handed to him night in and night out, Herman Schultz and company keep the language tame...until Big Bad the Grim Reaper shows Shocker what happened to the last guy who turned him down, revealing the Punisher trussed up like a stuck pig slowly being bled to death.
After my jaw dropped for a few seconds, I decided it was time to sum up this entire situation in a very simple and succinct phase. "You're fucking nuts."
In Pretty Cure Heavy Metal episode 24, Shugo fakes an Australian accent and lands a precision N strike in a parody of the N word privileges supposedly held by white Australians. The rest of the N words are spoken by the token black, who has all the N words in episode 25.
Later, in episode 51, Shugo drops an uncensored F bomb right before she dies from her wounds, just to maximize the impact. She gets better.
In Kira Is Justice: "Oh crap." Bear in mind that the author almost never uses any curse words in his writing. Not even "stupid".
In Relationships Series story "Pain", Shamal asks "what the hell happened" to a badly injured Yuuno. Vita notices that this is the only time she has heard Shamal swear.
Harry Potter: Draco nails this trope in Yea, Though I Walk when he explains to Hermione, that killing Snape won't stop the demon that is claiming the Death Eaters from possessing his body The cursing and Draco's grief due to mercy killing his possessed father in vain, and her mother sacrificing herself to the demon to save her son really highlight that the situation seems completely hopeless.
Draco: You can't kill a fucking demon with a pillow!
In another Harry Potter fan fic straight-laced Percy realizes that the Minister of Magic is under the Imperius curse, which could only mean Voldemort is controlling him. His mental response: "Oh, shit."
The Gift: While other characters seem not to mind colorful language, JoJo...doesn't. Except when the invisible hologram explains that she's part of a time experiment gone awry, she combines it with a spoonerism:
In the fifth chapter of thisDeath Note fanfic, Mello finds out that Matt scored a lot higher than he'd assumed. It turnes out the two of them made a Side Bet, with Mello assuming that he'd win. Well it turns out things didn't go that way...
In Turnabout Storm, from Phoenix Wright's part right after he discovers that Trixie, the prosecutor of the case, knew about Rainbow Dash's possible motive.
Phoenix Wright:Dammit! She knows! Twilight Sparkle: Phoenix! Language!
Garrus: I don't say this often, so understand that I really, really mean it: go fuck yourself.
Naruto Veangance Revelaitons is typically far too laden withprofanity to qualify, but one happens in an ending added by the author's stepbrother, in which Edfred returns everyone to normal and Sakura kills Ronan
Considering the whole Zalbaar-being-captured-by-Gamorean-slavers circumstance, it's understandable
In Pretty Cure Hollywood Stars, Lina gets a Precision Black Strike, and because she's white it is NOT the N word (it's been stated numerous times in-story that she isn't racist, though she does drop an epiphet from time to time and gets called on it by either one of the other characters or the narrator). Here's a hint: think Clint, for whom the author named her.
Film
Performed calmly and elegantly by arguably the most revered Shakespeare actor of the past century, Sir John Gielgud, as Hobson the butler in Arthur (the 1981 movie):
Executive: He gets all that money. Pays his family back by bein' a stinkin' drunk. It's enough ta make ya sick.
Hobson: I really wouldn't know, sir. I'm just a servant. On the other hand... go screw yourself.
Gordon saying "We've got you, you son of a bitch" upon capturing The Joker, (after Joker along with much of Gotham thought Gordon was dead) in The Dark Knight is a good example.
Earlier in that scene, after Batman DOESN'T hit him with the Batpod, the Joker mouths the f-word, though it isn't audible. Blink and you'll miss it.
The Rite: When Michael enters his room, and finds it filled with frogs (which the movie shows as a sign of demonic possession), he utters, "You gotta be fucking kidding me!"
Captain Rhodes wants to know what the fuck you're doing with his time.
500 Days of Summer is rated PG-13, so it has to keep its language relatively friendly. When Tom is in the throes of depression after Summer leaves him, he tends to take his anger out via "poetry"
The film Be Cool (which was rated PG-13) used a Precision F Strike in the very beginning to lampshade the ratings system. After telling a friend that a movie can't have more than one F-bomb or else it gets an R rating (contrary to popular belief, this is not exactly true), John Travolta's character gives his opinion of that rule: "Fuck that."
The UK's BBFC ratings had/have a similar rule, in that the F word can be used twice and qualify for a 12 certificate, but any more gets a 15.
Donnie Darko was rated R and therefore made few attempts to limit its "fuck"-ing, however it still features two prime examples of precisely-used F bombs.
The first occurs early in the film, while the Darko family is eating dinner. Donnie and Elizabeth engage in a heated argument, in which they use remarks like "fuck-ass" and "suck a fuck." Even more comical than the fact that this is all taking place at the dinner table is the youngest Darko's response.
Samantha: "What's a fuck-ass?"
The second incident happens during a school assembly featuring the motivational speaker Jim Cunningham. After Cunningham's presentation, he takes questions from audience members, whom he repeatedly insists are troubled only by their own fear. Finding these suggestions preposterous, Donnie stands up as if he plans to ask a question, but instead gives his own take on Jim's advice. Jim Cunningham then calls Donnie a "troubled and confused young man."
Donnie: "You're right, actually. I am pretty— I'm, I'm pretty troubled and I'm— I'm pretty confused. But I— ...And I'm afraid. Really, really afraid. Really afraid. But I... I... I think you're the fucking Antichrist."
In Freedom Writers, the teacher sees that one of her Troubled But Cute inner city students has given himself an F on his self-graded story. The normally clean and preppy teacher's reaction? "You know what I see with this F? A big FUCK YOU."
In Serenity, Mal Reynolds' line of "I will shoot you down," was written in the script as "I will fucking shoot you."
Though unusually, when Mal talks about how Simon knew River might go "apeshit" at any moment, it passes very quickly.
Watch the out-takes. There's a particularly startling one at Book's village.
Subverted in Accepted: Ben Lewis uses Shit many times during the meeting, and he also says "Fucking A!" Because Accepted is rated PG-13, he's not allowed to say Fuck anymore, but, when he delivers the Movies Aesop, it's beeped out. This arguably makes it even funnier.
As previously explained, though, there is no such single-F-bomb limit.
Actually there kind of is. "A motion picture’s single use of one of the harsher sexually-derived words, though only as an expletive, initially requires at least a PG-13 rating. More than one such expletive requires an R rating, as must even one of those words used in a sexual context. The Rating Board nevertheless may rate such a motion picture PG-13 if, based on a special vote by a two-thirds majority, the Raters feel that most American parents would believe that a PG-13 rating is appropriate because of the context or manner in which the words are used or because the use of those words in the motion picture is inconspicuous." Taken from the MPAA's official description of the PG-13 rating. Not a "Two uses of fuck and it's R rated the end" but... you get the picture. It's possible to have 3 or 4 uses of fuck in a PG-13 movie, just unlikelier than if there were 2 uses of fuck in the same film.
Interestingly enough, the war documentary Gunner Palace got away with 42 uses of the word fuck and still had a PG-13 rating. That being said, the film makers had to campaign aggressively to get the rating lowered from an R, arguing that as it displayed real soldiers fighting in a real war, the swearing was not gratuitous. The Appeals Board agreed.
Agent Hanratty in Catch Me if You Can has one complete with perfect deadpan deliver.
"Wanna hear a joke?"
"Uhh..sure. Yeah."
"Knock knock."
(eagerly) "Who's there?"
(beat) "Go fuck yourself."
The Last King of Scotland is filled with lusty Scottish swearing, but one f-bomb near the climax hits particularly hard.
Dr. Garrigan:You're not a king, you're a child. That's what makes you so fucking scary.
Angela's use of one in American Beauty marks the point where we first start to see her true nature.
Alien actually has a few of these, all from different characters.
The first Aliens Vs Predator film has this line: "It's a bomb. Well, I hope it blows up every fucking one of them!"
Live Free or Die Hardalmost had McClane's catchphrase, but like the above, it was censored by a gunshot. The Director's Cut left it in, and it's hugely satisfying.
The trope is Older than They Think, since it was done in Gone With the Wind with Clark Gable's memorable line: "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn!" (There's a rumour that the producer was fined $5000 by the Motion Picture Association of America for leaving it in; in fact, the MPAA ultimately gave it a pass on the grounds that it was "damn" in the original book as well.)
The Sum of All Fears attempts to avoid the R rating and ends up giving its one Fuck to the U.S. President.
The Amazing Yen speaks nothing but Chinese for the entirety of Ocean's Eleven until, in a fit of frustration at Danny and Linus's late arrival he screams out "Where the FUCK you been?!"
This gets pulled off by Spike Witwicky in Transformers: The Movie. After an attempt to destroy Unicron with a moon bomb fails, Spike makes explicit his surprise by exclaiming, "It isn't even dented! Oh SHIT, what are we gonna do now?!". The fact that this was based off a cartoon for all ages makes it all the more surprising. Some versions have the line removed. This became so prevalent that on one Transformers DVD, this particular moment is titled "Swear"!
Later on in the film, Ultra Magnus tries to open the Matrix to defeat Galvatron and his Decepticon army. He fails of course, letting off a growl of "Open! Damn it, OPEN!"
In Star Trek: Generations, when the Enterprise is about to make a crash landing, Data (who has recently acquired his emotion chip) sums up the situation very concisely: "Oh, shit!" If any other character had delivered this line, it would have lost most if not all of its impact.
Also used in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, where Spock's response to the news of the Enterprise's decommissioning is: "If I were human, I believe my response would be... Go to Hell."
Homaged in Star Trek: First Contact; the Enterprise is ordered to stay out of a battle with the Borg. As the battle goes badly, Picard tells the crew he's about to violate that order and notes that any crew objections will be noted. Data (the logical android who had no emotions until the previous movie) responds with a crowning moment of awesome: "I believe I speak for the entire crew, sir, when I say... To Hell with our orders."
Spock's efforts at swearing, when the Enterprise crew traveled the hell back in time to 1986, in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, demonstrated why his not using curse words is a good idea.
Actually, I think Kirk's "Double dumbass on you, too!" was the best example of why not to try.
An implied swear is present, when the local whale biologist is getting wise to time-travelling Kirk and Spock's true intentions with the whales.
Spock:Are you sure it isn't time for a colorful metaphor?
Although he did figure out swearing by the end of the film. "Just one damn minute, Captain."
And when Chekov successfully transports Kirk and Sulu back onto the Enterprise, he yells "Yo-moyo!" This is a Foreign Cuss Word closely translating to "Good shit!" in Russian.
The Live-action parody movie of the above, Star Wreck, has one engineer, whose name actually qualifies: Fukov. The way it's pronounced, it often sounds like "fuck off".
In Source Code when Colter finds out he's dead and Goodwin tries to calm him, Colter, who up to this point has been nothing but polite and patient, simply stands up and screams "FUCK YOU!"
A well-timed cuss word is used in the film Avatar. When Tsu'tey figures out that Jake and Neytiri have had sex in the middle of an already-volatile situation, Dr. Augustine responds in the following fashion:
Tsu'tey: You mated with this woman?!
Dr. Augustine: Oh, shit.
This one's made even more effective by the fact that everyone present in the scene is using Na'vi mannerisms by this point, but Augustine "breaks character" to deliver her curse with a very noticeably human tone and gesture.
Not to forget when Jake scares off the giant... rhino... thing. (Paraphrasing but...)
Jake: Yeah that's right bitch, run back on to mommy.
Turns around to subsequently see a giant... leopard... thing behind him. One wonders why he didn't swear in the presence of Quaritch considering how much of a badass Quaritch is.
The F-bomb is dropped somewhat early in Hancock, and an earlier (foreign) swear had been censored in the subtitles, presumably to take advantage of the rule mentioned above.
In the Johnny Cash biopic Walk The Line, Cash generally sticks only to the mild, old-school country boy stuff like "damn" and "hell". But in the scene where he performs on stage drunk/high, he acts very strange, playing the guitar with a dazed smile on his face and making an unusually harsh aside to his drummer: "Just play the fucking thing." Moments later, he collapses. This surprising usage of the word catches the viewer off-guard and lets them know something bad is about to go down.
Later in the movie, he lampshades this trope while performing at Folsom Prison: "Now, we're recording live, so don't say 'hell' or 'shit' or anything like that."
In the recent film Changeling, this is important: Saying "Fuck you and the horse you rode in on" shows her decision to fight for her son whatever the cost.
Captain Yardley: (To Sgt. Prendergast, the protagonist) I never liked you. You know why? You don't curse. I don't trust a man who doesn't curse. Not a "fuck" or a "shit" in all these years. Real men curse.
(Much later, when Yardley tries to get Prendergast to say a few words and help him look good on camera:)
The Simpsons Movie: "SOMEBODY THROW THE GODDAMN BOMB!!" The reason it's effective in this case isn't the level of the swear (bitch, bastard, whore and slut having been mainstays in the series for years), but the speaker, Marge, who in the series proper almost never swears; however, only on Sky 1 is the word ever used on the show proper due to American TV blasphemy rules (see below for when Sky 1 did use that word).
Humourously the subtitles for the episode "Mother Simpson" on Sky 1 manages to turn a line into a weird kind of F-Strike. Makes it funnier if you are watching this episode at midday.
Homer* upon seeing that the grave of his mother is actually another persons grave: * screams angrily* DAMN YOU, WALT WHITMAN!
Subtitle track: GOD DAMN YOU, WALT WHITMAN!
The episode "Fraudcast News" has one delivered by Groundskeeper Willy near the end of the episode:
Willy: Check out the Willy World News! I review the new tractors... They're all shite!*
Guess which three words of that sentence have always been cut from subsequent British TV airings... after being left intact for its premiere on Sky One, shown before the watershed.
There is a slightly better example; Early on, we are introduced to the "swear box," into which one must put money if they swear. This is called back later when Nick Angel tosses in a coin and yells "Leslie Tiller was FUCKING murdered!" Up 'til then, he was shown not even to swear ever on police time.
From Spaceballs: "'Out of order'?! FUCK! Even in the future, nothing works!" Interestingly, the MPAA actually rated the film PG despite this F strike, making it one of VERY FEW PG-rated filmss where someone audibly says "fuck". Even more interestingly, this was also after the PG-13 rating was introduced.
In Baseketball, Coop lets out a distraught "Fuck!" after an argument with Remer when the Beers are exploited by Baxter Caine. Televised airings cut that F-bomb out.
The Drover in Australia sticks to the fairly mild "crikey" for most of the film. After Darwin is bombed by the Japanese and he's told his lover is dead, he goes into the ruin of a bar for a drink. When the barkeep refuses to let the Drover's aborigine friend in he snaps "Just serve the fucking drink."
In Quantum of Solace, Judi Dench of all people drops a spectacular one when she snaps, "I don't give a shit what the CIA thinks!" This, after 22 James Bond films where the strongest swear word heard is "bastard"... oh, my.
There's also Pam Bouvier in Licence to Kill, one of the series' most notable attempts to go Darker and Edgier. Her response to Q telling her Bond's just doing his usual thing in sleeping around on her is "Bullshit!"
It's not the first time either; when Bond hijacks an airplane in Live and Let Die, one passenger's response is to say "shit".
Not to mention his "son of a bitch" in a crucial scene in Licence to Kill. That movie was the closest any Bond movie came to getting an R rating — they had to cut some of the more violent scenes in order for the movie to make PG-13.
And even then, the film got a 15 in the UK—the only Bond film to do so. Only recently has the uncut version, officially rated R by the MPAA, been released on home video in the States—and that one's always packaged with the PG-13 cut.
Life of Brian In a book full of interviews with the Pythons, one of them acknowledges this trope with regards to this exchange.
Brian: I'm not the Messiah! Will you please listen? I am not the Messiah, do you understand? Honestly!
Girl: Only the true Messiah denies His divinity.
Brian: What? Well, what sort of chance does that give me? All right! I am the Messiah!
On the other hand, his speech after that incident is more of a Cluster F-Bomb.
This trope is most definitely prevalent in Finding Forresterafter Jamal calls out Forrester for being too scared to help him out. And this is to a character played by Sean Connery, nonetheless.
In the Towering Inferno, after Steve McQueen realizes that the only way to put out the fire will probably kill both him and Paul Newman: "Oh, Shit!"
The Good Son has one of the actor-side variant; you wouldn't expect the Home Alone kid to say "Don't fuck with me."
Lucky Number Slevin drops the F-bomb from time to time, but The Boss (played by Morgan Freeman) rarely swears up until the film's climax. His calling the Rabbi a "fucking Philistine" face-to-face—er... back-to-back? is pretty intense.
Additionally, Slevin only drops the F-bomb when he's repeating something his neighbour Lindsay said.
And when he takes the precision F-shot after revealing himself not as Slevin or Nick Fisher, but as Henry, the child whose family was killed in the first flashback of the film.
"The two of you killed everything I ever loved. Fuck you both."
The Austin Powers series doesn't have a whole lot of swearing, making it more effective in Goldmember when Dr. Evil responds to his unexpected capture in the first act with a simple "...shit."
This was a Call Back to a similar situation in the first film. Dr. Evil outlines an elaborate plan to blackmail the Royal Family, but Number Two shoots it down. Dr. Evil, not to be deterred, follows up with a second even more elaborate plan involving lasers and cancer the world over...but Number Two shoots it down. Dr. Evil's response? "Shit."
Alec Baldwin uses a perfectly-timed F bomb in The Aviator.
Inverted in Once Upon a Time in Mexico; aside from when he's deliberately being polite, Sands curses like a sailor throughout the movie. When he is truly, truly scared, he starts using G-rated euphemisms. For example, to Barillo and Dr. Guevara immediately before they take away his eyes:
Sands: I feel it's only fair to warn you that killing me is crossing the line, and you will have every single Marine from here to Guantanamo Bay up your keester, mister, so just know that.
The Sandlot (a PG-rated movie, by the way), right after Benny tries to get back the Babe Ruth autographed baseball from the neighbor's yard, the dog, Hercules, jumps over the fence and chases him all over town. His "Oh, shit!" is a perfect Oh Crap moment, too.
In Temple of Doom, Indy, with Willie and Short Round with him, are on a rope bridge over a huge gorge with a rock-strewn and alligator-infested river beneath them...and mad cultists at either end of the bridge. Oh, and he's out of bullets.
Indy: Oh, shit.
Made even worse by the fact that he's not out of bullets, he's out of gun.
Raiders of the Lost Ark did it first, with Indy saying "holy shit" when the Nazi submarine arrives.
When Belloq leaves him trapped in the Well of Souls and jokes: "Who knows? In a thousand years even you may be worth something!" Indy laughs and mutters "Son of a bitch!"
In The Last Crusade, when Indy swipes the MP-40 away from one of the German officers as he's trying to rescue his dad, the officer says shit in German.
In Sixteen Candles (rated PG) the word is used one time, when Samantha realizes that her family forgot her birthday.
This PG rating is a prime example of liberal censorship, considering that use of the F bomb, as well as the film's locker room scene, in which a teenage character's naked figure is observed by Samantha.
Stargate Continuum. None of the characters swear that much in the series and even then, it's fairly mild. But when SG-1 find themselves in Antarctica and Daniel has to be left alone in the freezing cold, with frost bite in his left leg, he calmly watches his friends walk away before muttering to himself: "Aw shit."
And later, during the interrogation montage:
Daniel Jackson: I mean, seriously, who would make this shit up?!
The recent Get Smart film made excellent use of this trope, especially with Alan Arkin's character.
Right after driving through a snack bar with a swordfish on it.
Max: Chief, are you thinking what I'm thinking? The Chief: I don't know, are you thinking Holy shit, holy shit, a swordfish almost went through my head? If so, yes.
Annoyingly averted in Galaxy Quest. Originally, when being told to go through the garbage chompers, Sigourney Weaver's reaction was supposed to be "Well fuck that!", which would have been the film's only profanity, and would have been highly effective. The line is instead dubbed to "Well screw that!", although the actor can clearly be seen saying the original line.
Equilibrium has little swearing, only three times by my count. The most effective one is when Preston has been caught, all seems lost, and then the polygraph he is hooked up to flatlines, accompanied by a simple "Oh... Shit." from the attendant, just before Preston says "Not without incident," and starts a Gun Kata asskicking spree that does not end until he kills DuPont.
As the DVD's deleted scenes reveal, X-Men: The Last Stand was originally poised to have one of these: "Mr. President, shut the fuck up!" The final cut of the film is actually the least profane of the trilogy, with not even a "shit" making it through. The most TV-unfriendly word in the movie is "dickhead".
Of course, there is the iconic line (and Ascended Meme), "I'm theJuggernaut, bitch!"
In X-Men: First Class, Wolverine gets one when approached by Charles and Erik: "Go fuck yourselves."
Something of a trend for him, as the second film gave him a rather effective "Holy shit" upon seeing Lady Deathstrike's claws.
She's All That: Rachael Leigh Cook delivers the line "Am I a bet; am I a fucking bet?" This is done with the camera on a silent Freddie Prinze, Jr., making it trivial to edit for network television.
Dr. Emmett Brown: If my calculations are correct, when this baby hits eighty-eight miles per hour... you're gonna see some serious shit.
Also discussed when George asks Marty if he really needs to swear when he confronts him in the car with Lorraine ("Hey you! Get your damn hands off her."), which sets up George's Crowning Moment of Awesome against Biff.
"Yes, George, goddammit, swear!"
Public Enemies makes good use of this trope, partly due to taking place in a time when swearing had yet to be as cheapened as it is today. The "bomb" itself is dropped under appropriate duress.
Billy Bob Thornton's character in Armageddon is a calm, subdued NASA director. During the mission, when the drillers are having trouble drilling to the necessary distance in order to plant their bomb, the president orders the bomb to be remote detonated from mission control, which would essentially waste the bomb and doom the Earth to destruction. As one of the military generals the president has sent in prepares to detonate the bomb, Thornton's character lets his disapproval be known: "This is one order you shouldn't follow and you FUCKING know it!"
Nicolas Cage's character in The Rock starts out as a nerdy scientist type who's obviously way in over his head participating in the Alcatraz mission, and who makes conscious efforts to avoid the use of cuss words. By the time the mission is nearly complete, he has become so affected by his experiences that he gives both his partner and the enemy soldiers a mouthful of F-bombs.
In Orphan, Isabelle Fuhrman's character, a 9-year-old girl named Esther or so we are led to believe, delivers the first "Fuck" of the movie. It's the first foul word in the film and it's reasonably far in; all that combined with her absolutely calm, matter-of-fact, deadpan delivery makes the whole audience jump.
Near the end of Shall We Dance? after Link's co-workers discover that he is a ballroom dancer and begin to mock him, he says "Fuck you all."
While A Fish Called Wanda is hardly short swear words, it's still a great precision strike when the proper and polite Archie finally snaps:
George: Tell those pigs to fuck off. Archie: Fuck off, pigs. [Police officers are dumbfounded] Archie: Did you hear what I said? Fuck off.
In Red Eye, Psycho for Hire Jackson Rippner spends the majority of the film suave, calm, and in control of himself. His voice even borders on a Creepy Monotone at times. However, when he catches Lisa attempting to foil his plan, again, in the airplane bathroom, not only does he get seriously violent, but he finally starts to swear. (The rest of the swearing in the movie is from mostly heroic characters.) In a callback to his earlier misjudged drink order—
"You know what I think? I think you're not such an honest person. Because I've been following you for eight weeks now, and I never once saw you order anything but a fucking Sea Breeze!
While Jay is pretty potty-mouthed himself, Silent Bob gets one in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. Jay's monkey is kidnapped and driven away in a van with a poster on the back that clearly shows its destination. After about 3 minutes of stupidity, SilentBob is forced to set his friend straight.
In 28 Days, the writers had to deliberate over the best place for Sandra Bullock to use the F word, it being a PG-13 movie an' all. In the end, they struck "Fuck Mr. Rogers" and went with the more perfunctory scene in which Bullock's character defends herself in a group circle. "Would you please just BACK THE FUCK OFF?!"
So, he's got the sandwich in one hand, and the fucking head in the other!
In another PG-13 rated Coen Brothers' film, Intolerable Cruelty, the one f-bomb is used really well.
Wrigley: Do you have any baby field greens? Diner Waitress: What did you call me? Wrigley: Uh — do you have a green salad? Waitress: What the fuck color would it be?
Val Kilmer delivers the sole F bomb in Tombstone while playing Chopin on the piano. The saloon's resident music critic/drunken gunfighter apparently had never heard of "Frederic fucking Chopin".
Questionably employed in the remake of The Italian Job. Apparently following the "one and only one use in a PG-13 movie" rule, the writers gave it to the villain when his truck full of gold vanishes on him ("Where the fuck is my TRUCK!!") Which is a good place for it, but meant that another character (with no in-character reason to self-censor) got to shout the laughable "mother-freaking Ukrainians!" in another scene.
Beetlejuice (Which was only rated PG by the way): "Nice fucking model!"
HONK HONK!
In Jennifer's Body, after she realizes she's making out with Jennifer, Needy screams "What the fuck!?!" Jennifer tells her that it's the first time she's heard her say "fuck".
On the director's commentary for Shattered Glass, which was a PG-13 movie, director Billy Ray notes that they specifically saved up their allotted uses of the word "shit" for Chuck Lane's furious "World of Cardboard" Speech against Stephen Glass. Considering that Lane had been portrayed as a sensible, no-dramatics kind of guy, when he finally loses his temper the accompanying swearing is very effective.
In The Brothers Bloom, Bang Bang, a character who says almost nothing throughout the entire film, uses one of her few lines to simply say "Fuck me" when the gang accidentally causes a huge explosion.
When Ron tells Harry to "piss off" in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Not exactly the F-bomb, but the reaction in my theatre was EPIC nonetheless.
Also, same movie, when Harry says "I don't give a DAMN what your father says, Malfoy!"
From Deathly Hallows Part 2: "Not my daughter, you bitch.AVADA KEDAVRA!"
Garry: I know you gentlemen have been through a lot, but when you find the time, I'd rather not spend the rest of this winter TIED TO THIS FUCKING COUCH!
Not to mention the crawling head scene's hilarious quip: "You gotta be fucking kidding..."
"YEAH, FUCK YOU TOO!!"
Good Morning Vietnam: The fighting men have fought to get Cronauer back on the air after he reported censored news, but he's given up. His attitude pushes the normally mild-mannered Garlick to his breaking point: "So that's it? You're just gonna leave the whole fucking thing behind?!"
Quentin Tarantino, known for his vulgar dialogue, also likes throwing in precision strikes:
Pulp Fiction, Honey Bunney speaks in a Tastes Like Diabetes fashion to Pumpkin until they start their robbery, when she barks out: "Any one of you pigs moves... and I'll execute every motherfuckin last one a' ya!" Later, the very business-like Wolf ends a request, "...so, pretty please, with sugar on top, clean the fucking car."
Also when Marcellus Wallace runs into the man he's been looking for, just by sheer coincidence, his reaction is a single well-timed "Motherfucker".
In Kill Bill, O-Ren gives a poisonously sweet, friendly and courteous speech to the Yakuza council about her open-door management philosophy, then finishes it off with an increasingly angered, "Now, if any of you sons of bitches got anything else to say, now's the fucking time!"
Inglourious Basterds has a particularly notable example from a relatively mild word. A Gestapo officer discovers in a bar some of the Basterds disguised as German officers with the German actress Bridget von Hammersmark, a British double agent. The very Affably Evil Gestapo officer makes this point known and Hammersmark starts to speak, to which he replies "shut up slut". For a film that includes many instances of Crosses the Line Twice, that alone got an audible gasp among the audience.
The Devil's Rejects, the f-bomb king, has one precision f-strike made all the sweeter by the fact it actually lampshades the f-strike itself!
Adam Banjo:(bleeding to death) Fuck... you... Otis B. Driftwood: That's what they all say. "Fuck you!" Well it ain't gonna save you. It don't scare me none and it don't suddenly make you a fucking hero.
From Knocked Up: Sure, there was plenty of cursing (it WAS an R-rated Judd Apatow movie, after all), but surprisingly enough, very little from Paul Rudd (who usually somehow ends up delivering Cluster F Bombs in most of his comedy movies before and since)...until he's looking for some nookie from his wife, played by Leslie Mann, and gets rebuffed.
"Well...FUCK!"
This is also the only time we get to hear Ryan Seacrest curse.
Speed: "FUCK ME!", when Jack sees the bomb under the bus.
Even Siskel & Ebert considered this trope to be hilarious in the film Critters, in which it's uttered in Critterese by a foot-tall alien furball, and the translation appears as a subtitle.
Subverted in the Porky's sequel, when a character's misheard demand that an evangelist "get the flock out of here!" is mis-heard by an entire arena full of people ... and (this being a Porky's film) receives a standing ovation from the teen protagonists.
The Running Man gets bonus points for this one, by having its Precision F-Strike delivered by a sweet-looking little old grandmother on live television.
In Inside Man, the mayor of New York gets one. He and Madeleine White, played by Jodie Foster, are all smiles and pleasantries until the door to his office closes, at which point he shifts gear dramatically. After she's finished her list of politely-phrased demands, he tells her "You are a magnificent cunt."
In Soap Dish, Sally Field, no less, complains about her character's outfit. "It makes me look like Gloria fucking Swanson!"
Crimson Tide features a fantastic example, when Gene Hackman and Denzel Washington are having a disagreement and talking over each other, during which Hackman's character appears polite, calm and rational, but finally snaps, "Mr Hunter. I've made a decision. I'm Captain of this boat. NOW SHUT THE FUCK UP!"
The French-Canadian dub of Team America: World Police does a variation of this. As in the English-language original, swear words are used throughout. However, they are all translated as international French swearwords, such "putain" or "merde", which in Québec are considered as rather mild. However, when all hell breaks loose in the Egypt mission, one of the puppets let out a deadpan "Oh, shit". In that case, and ONLY in that case, it is translated by a "sacre", an infamous religious-based swear word unique to Quebec: "Ostie".
In The Blind Side when Leigh Ann is facing down a drug dealer while looking for Michael.
Leigh Ann: No, you hear me, bitch!
The Spy Kids series had used "shittake mushrooms" to cover for the kids' swearing, especially in the first film when Juni almost says "Oh shit" when facing down his robot double and Carmen covers for him. In the second film during a duel against a traitorous agent, she tells him "You're so full of shit," causing the various monsters and reanimated skeletons watching the fight to gasp in shock.
In the second movie, "-take mushroom" is actually subtly muttered after Carmen's use of "shit," similar to its use in the first movie.
Carmen does it again in the fourth film, when she and her family are surrounded by Tick Tock's agents:
Carmen: Oh, shittake mushrooms.
In Robert Altman's M*A*S*H, the 4077th is playing a football game against the 8063rd. During the game one of the 4077th's players decides to tell a player on the other team, "All right, bud, your fuckin' head is coming right off." Not only is this the only use of the word in the movie, it's one of the earliest uses of the word in all of mainstream Hollywood cinema.
Two occur in Julie & Julia: The first when Julia Child (Meryl Streep) is removing pasta from a pan, remarking to her husband that "These damn things are as hot as a stiff cock!" The second, is later in the film; her husband Paul (Stanley Tucci) is consoling her over a failed book deal, with the style and gravitas one would expect from a diplomat - until he concludes with a heartfelt "Fuck them."
Daniel Craig's character in Munich: "Don't fuck with the Jews."
Bill Cosby - a famously clean comedian - uses one in one of his most famous routines. From Bill Cosby: Himself:
I said to a guy, "Tell me, what is it about cocaine that makes it so wonderful," and he said, "Because it intensifies your personality." I said, "Yes, but what if you're an asshole?"
In Date Night, Phil (Steve Carell) gets more and more tired of looking at the perpetually shirtless Mark Wahlberg. While asking him for some assistance before the climax, he ends by tearfully saying "And would you please, for the love of god, put on a fucking shirt?"
In Killers, after Katherine Heigl has found that her husband never told him about being an agent (not to mention nearly getting killed several times), and then at the end finds out her father was also lying about who he was, she snaps and forces her husband and her parents into a "trust circle" and tells them that there will be no more secrets or lies in the family and no more killing, she then firmly illustrates her point by stating "I don't even want to see you swat a FUCKING fly!"
Some versions change this to "Blimey, he cleared it!", or just "Cleared it", annoyingly.
Million Dollar Baby has a single swear word, given by a priest of all people. While arguing with Clint Eastwood's character, he says, "Okay, now you're a fucking paganist".
I believe it was "there are no demigods, you fuckin' pagan!" in response to his questions about the one God/holy trinity dichotomy.
Gran Torino has one as well; when you see a very serious and straight-laced Catholic priest take the lord's name in vain (in a church, no less), you know things are about to get grim.
Walt employs a Precision Black Strike once, and not only is it his only racial slur against blacks in the entire film, it's the only racial slur against blacks in the entire film period!
Walt: What are you spooks up to?
Driving Lessons has a well-placed F strike toward the end (in the American version it's one of only two F words, the earlier one being spoken by Evie earlier on during their road trip to Edinburgh, and the two lines that follow this one are cut entirely):
Ben Marshall: Fuck off, Sarah. Sarah: What? Ben Marshall: I said, "fuck off."
Inigo Montoya: HELLO! MY NAME IS INIGO MONTOYA. YOU KILLED MY FATHER. PREPARE TO DIE. Count Rugen: No! Inigo Montoya: Offer me money. Count Rugen: Yes... Inigo Montoya: Power, too. Promise me that. Count Rugen: All that I have and more, please... Inigo Montoya: Offer me everything I ask for. Count Rugen: Anything you want. Inigo Montoya: I want my father back, you son of a bitch. And then, finally, he kills Count Rugen.
This is carried over almost exactly from the original novel. The main difference is that in the novel, Inigo practically screams the line; in the film, he says it very softly and intently and it's awesome.
Three Days of the Condor: "You play games. Six people died, and you play fucking GAMES?"
Although Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was rife with all sorts of profanity, calamity, and insanity, Duke's "FINISH! THE FUCKING! STORY!!" is very effective, and due to the way he says it, is actually almost just as frightening as what he had been hallucinating: his attorney turning into a werewolf like demon with six breasts growing out of his back, accompanied with some scary ass music and creepy red lights everywhere.
In 2012, a very desperate Jackson Curtis tells his wife and kids to "get in the fucking car!", as their house crumbles around them.
In Married to the Mob, Connie Russo (Mercedes Ruehl) is tearing through the (pretty crappy looking) apartment of Angela de Marco (Michelle Pfeiffer), looking for her philandering husband Tony "The Tiger" Russo (played by Dean Stockwell, but he's not there). In mid-tear, Connie stops, looks around and says to no one in particular, "What a fucking dump."
Karl Urban manages one in the last five minutes of Red, the only one in the whole film. And it is glorious. "Fuck you, Cynthia
In Air Force One, the Big Bad played by Gary Oldman drops the f-bomb twice, including the scene where the plane is about to land at Ramstein Air Force Base, but he won't allow it: "GET THE FUCK IN THE AIR!"
The movie version of Little Shop of Horrors, when Audrey II is electrocuted, right before he explodes he shouts "Oh, SHIT!"
Also when Seymour figures out his plan to take over the world with his plant army Audrey II responds "Well no shit Sherlock!".
In Knight and Day, there is a little swearing, and every use of it counts.
Played for humor in Panic Room. Meg and her daughter Sarah are trapped in the room, which has an intercom.
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World was going to contain a Precision F Strike, using their one PG-13 allotted curse word by having Envy Adams say the line "Shut the fuck up Julie." According to the director's commentary, the f-bomb was censored in the same way that Julie's lines jokingly were because they unwittingly used up their curse word allotment when Scott called the third evil ex-boyfriend a "cocky cock."
Though they did keep Wallace's "Oh, Shit" line from the comic book.
It's arguably funnier with the bleep (complete with a black box to cover her mouth)
In the beginning of Mixed Nuts, Mrs. Munchnik (Madeline Kahn) is generally pretty uptight and never curses. Later in the film, Phillip and Catherine discover her stuck in an elevator, only to get distracted and leave her there for a number of minutes. They forget about her, and she's pretty accomodating about it. Until, that is, she gets impatient and picks the perfect moment to shout "HEY...DICKHEADS!!!!"
What, no mention of Planet of the Apes? With the closing sequence featuring Charlton Heston's famous "GOD DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!!!"
"Get your stinking paws off me, you damn dirty ape!"
Star Wars has mostly clean language, which is why its few moments of swearing are so special.
A New Hope has the following conversation between Han Solo and Obi-Wan Kenobi:
Han: Even if I could take off, I'd never get past the tractor beam.
Rebel technician: Sir, your tauntaun will freeze before you reach the first marker.
Han: Then I'll see you in hell!
In Battle: Los Angeles, Nantz (Aaron Eckhart) gets one very rousing example when he encourages men to "show those bastards who they're fuckin' with" during an alien invasion.
1971's "A New Leaf" (which co-writer and co-star Elaine May had since disavowed) has Walter Matthau dropping "hell" and "damn" several times (throwing in a "damn it to hell") as well as "son of a bitch"once (after being called a son of a bitch). Plus it had a scene of a woman removing her bikini top, cutting away to Matthau running off in a panic just in time. The MPAA gave this film a "G" rating.
In the PG-13 rated Cellular, Mooney finally reaches the end of his rope with people calling his retirement business a beauty parlor. "It's a day spa, you fuck!"
Possibly in The King's Speech. While Bertie's practicing with Lionel, Lionel suggests that Bertie tries swearing. Bertie isn't up for it at first, but in the end he goes into a long tirade of "FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCKtits." (The word possibly is used here because the swearing is to help Bertie speak more fluently. Previously in the movie, Bertie could get so angry that he would have a short outburst where he didn't stutter at all.)
Tank features one. While in the chow hall, Command Sergeant Major Carey (James Garner) is eating with the enlisted men, much to the displeasure of the mess sergeant. Fully prepared to chew the Sergeant Major a new one for such a breach of etiquette, the master sergeant points out that he's been working mess halls over 27 years. Dwight D. Eisenhower ate his cooking! Carey calmly explains he came in not for a surprise inspection, but because he wanted to eat with the men and because the food smelled good, and proceeded to compliment the mess sergeant on his cooking.
MSG Johnson: "You wanna talk about my food, you taste that apple cobbler and then you talk about my food."
In Friday the 13th Part VI, when Tommy chews out the sheriff for not burning Jason's remains upon discovering them, the sheriff has this to say before Tommy sets off to finish the job the sheriff allegedly slacked off on:
In the first Critters film two crites are having a subtitled argument about how harmless the humans when suddenly one of them gets blown to pieces with a shotgun blast the survior shouts "Oh fuck!" in subtitles.
In the anti-McCarthyism film The Front, Woody Allen spends the entire film fronting for blacklisting writers, but without committing himself... until (in the last line) he tells the Unamerican Activities Sub-Committee to go fuck themselves... in a PG-rated movie!
Bullitt: The only profanity in the film occurs in a brief exchange near the end. According to IMDb, this was actually the first uncensored appearance of this word in a major film.
Senator Chalmers: Frank, we must all compromise. Lt. Bullitt: Bullshit.
1408 uses almost no curse words, save for this plot-summarizing line:
Olin: It's an evil fucking room.
1980s gem Galaxina features two. One, when it dawns on Chopper the high priest/leader of the motorcycle gangsters imprisoned on a distant planet that if he possesses the Blue Star, he'll be able to rule "the whole fucking universe!" The other is aimed at Sam, the elderly Oriental crewman who is prone to spouting off faux Confucianisms. Suffering from a neck injury, his crewmate, Maurice, has had one too many.
Sam: Robot woman like clock: pretty face, pretty hands, pretty movement, but hard to regulate when she get out of order.
Maurice: Sam, would you shut the fuck up?
In Kuffs, Christian Slater's brother Tony Goldwyn launches into a heavily-bleeped tirade spoofing profanity bleeps (every swear word is covered with a different sound), culminating in a very loud and unbleeped ''"FUCK YOU!"''
Wanted has the character Sloan (played by Morgan Freeman) dropping the F-bomb twice during the course of the film to punctuate some of its most dramatic scenes.
A very mild one in Plan 9 from Outer Space: "Find them, Colonel. See what in HELL it is they want!"
From The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, as Tuco reunites with his old partners in crime while planning his revenge on Joe for leaving him in the desert after saving him from the noose a second time:
Tuco: And people talk bullshit.
Right after said second attempt to hang him, Tuco has this to say about how it feels to be hanged:
Tuco: When that rope starts to pull tight you can feel the devil bite your ass!
The normally reserved Eduardo in The Social Network delivers one after finding out that Mark has essentially kicked him out of the company.
Eduardo: "Sorry! My Prada's at the cleaners! Along with my hoodie and my 'fuck you' flip-flops, you pretentious douchebag!"
Zander: One day someone like me is gonna kill you and your whole fucking race!
Terminator 2, when Sarah Connor realizes that Cyberdyne actually does have the remains of the original Terminator, as she'd believed:
"Son of a bitch, I knew it!"
In Super8, the stoner kid looks around, sees the carnage, and says simply, "What the fuck?"
Literature
In Good Omens, Aziraphale, an Angel actually says a very emphatic "Fuck." just before he dies. Almost. It was the first such instance in 6000 years. More than one reader had to put the book down. Everything about the character is the antithesis of a curse, so a hardened Cluster F Bomber will still burst into shocked giggles. Incidentally, this is easily the most obscene moment in the entire book.
The book has also spent the entire time up until the actual swearing mercilessly hanging lampshades on the fact that he doesn't swear wherever possible, in lines like, "Oh dear," muttered Aziaraphale with the practiced ease of one who has spent six thousand years not swearing ..." This helps to lend the appropriate amount of gravity to the moment whan it does occur.
There are precisely two F-words in Terry Pratchett's entire works. The other is spoken by Kin in Strata.
Mostly Harmless, spoken by Arthur to Ford, at the end of the worst day of his [Arthur's] life.
The Narrator gets one in Chapter 25 of So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish in a tangent about the nature of Arthur's sexuality (read: if he actually had one):
"This Arthur Dent," comes the cry from the farthest reaches of the galaxy, and has even now been found inscribed on a deep space probe thought to originate from an alien galaxy at a distance too hideous to contemplate, "what is he, man or mouse? Is he interested in nothing more than tea and the wider issues of life? Has he no spirit? Has he no passion? Does he not, to put it in a nutshell, fuck?" Those who wish to know should read on. Others may wish to skip on to the last chapter which is a good bit and has Marvin in it.
This is especially effective because it's the first time the word "fuck" is said in the entire series. And this is in the fourth book, in a series that is remarkably tame (the worst language before that, iirc, is the word "shit" ... once). But it really carries much more weight when Arthur says it in Mostly Harmless because he is normally impressively tolerant of Ford Prefect's nonsense up to this point. In comparison, when Ford says it later in the same book, it's done casually and no one is supposed to care.
Only in the American edition. Elsewhere, the word "fuck" first appears in the previous book, in reference to the award for "Most Gratuitous Use of the Word 'Fuck' in a Serious Screenplay".
Zaphod's use of "Belgium!" when they're in the ice cave in the original radio series is an example in-universe - he'd never normally use such strong language unless something was really wrong, and it prompts Ford to take the situation seriously.
Speaking of Belgium, the use of the word "Belgium" as an expletive is, in the books, established when Arthur runs afoul of a movie star who is extremely proud of having won an award for the most gratuitous use of such in a movie. There is an entire hilarious exchange revolving around Arthur trying to make sense of what's so offensive about the word Belgium..
Only in the American edition. Elsewhere...
In Peter David's Star Trek novel Vendetta, a Federation ship (not the Enterprise) sees the Planet Eater doing its thing, and an Ensign swears and then he apologizes to the captain, since that's frowned on; but the captain says that, no, that's quite all right; that's really the best way to describe the situation.
In the Star Trek Vanguard novel Precipice, a civilian character warned against helping a pre-warp culture fight the Klingons responds "Fuck the Prime Directive". Possibly the first use of the f-word in the entire Trekverse.
In Neil Gaiman's Stardust, Yvaine whispers fuckin very small letters just after hitting the ground. It is the only rude word in a book otherwise full of rich, subtle, poetic language.
Marge's use is a subtler example, as while it makes sense literally, the other sense of the word is clearly implied as well. (Marge compares Harry's alleged behavioral problems and his mother's alleged similar traits to dog breeding, stating "If there's something wrong with the bitch, there'll be something wrong with the pup." As Harry realizes from the moment that came out of her mouth that she had aimed a Your Mom joke at him, the next plot points are promptly set in motion)
In Heinlein's Starship Troopers, Juan Rico's first day of boot camp introduces Sergeant Zim, whose first act is to rant for several consecutive minutes on the various shortcomings (moral, mental, and physical) of the recruits, never once repeating himself or using profanity. Zim reserves profanity for when he's really serious. Rico spends most of the monologue wishing they had had someone with Zim's command of language on his debate team at school.
In the Watership Down novel, just as the heroes are about to attack the Warren of the Snares, Fiver, who is timid by nature, screams "Embleer Frith" — which translates roughly to "Damn God", to get them to stop.
Later in the book, Bigwig tells Woundwort to "Silflay hraka, u embleer rah" — this translates to "Eat shit, O Stinking King".
Though this may not qualify, as Bigwig isn't exactly the most timid of characters. In fact, this scene, while also qualifying for a Crowning Moment of Awesome, establishes him as the biggest, meanest, most dangerous rabbit in the novel. Which is saying something, considering who Woundwort is.
Sam Vimes in Men at Arms screams "I'm the law you Sons of Bitches!", while he's being possessed by the gonne.
The Discworld books are pretty good at precision swearing, actually. When someone says "Oh, bugger," they really mean it.
Unless it's Foul Ol' Ron.
Latatian example in Interesting Times. "Stercus, stercus, stercus, moritorus sum!" ("Shit, shit, shit, I'm about to die!")
Warrior Cats: In Moonrise, Leafpool exclaims "Mouse dung!" (which is essentially the cat equivalent of "Dammit!") shortly after failing to catch a mouse. She never really pseudo-swears at all, and is usually polite, so it was likely done to convey how ThunderClan has been effected by the extreme shortage of prey and how desperate they are for food.
Tallstar refusing Tigerstar's demands and publicly calling him a "piece of foxdung" ("piece of shit") in The Darkest Hour seems to carry more weight, being said by the stereotypically meek WindClan leader, and only makes it more of a Crowning Moment of Awesome for him.
Robin Hobb uses the F-word only a very few times in her books, meaning each has maximum impact. Towards the end of the Realm of the Elderlings novel Ship of Destiny, after Kennith rapes Althea, her nephew Wintrow defends him, causing Althea to scream at him: "Fuck you, Wintrow!"
Ben tends to throw profanity around fairly freely when in annoying situations (as long as there's no one around; all right, his parents are exceptions, but the point stands), but if it's not the kind of profanity you usually see in a Star Wars book (almost always mentioned in passing and not actually printed), you know something very bad happened. The last sentence of the leading quote for this page, which is best summarized as "Oh crap, the Sith are back" is about as profane as you can get while still staying safe for work; it made me laugh, at least.
In War and Remembrance, this word is only used once, by Janice Henry to a Japanese grocer right after the Pearl Harbor attack.
Queen Elizabeth III uses "cluster fuck" to describe her feelings on Solly Admiral Byng's idiocy at New Tuscany in Storm from the Shadows.
In Contact, Ellie Arroway typically sticks to "Holy Toledo!", but after the Very Large Array finally picks up on what looks like a genuine message from extraterrestrials, she takes a moment to retreat to her office, closes the door behind her, and whispers "Holy shit!"
In The Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing, the main character works for an annoyingly put-together, professional, well-educated Yamato Nadeshiko type, and mentions that all this makes hearing her Precision F Strikes like seeing a strong man cry.
Inverted in the Shadowrun novel Night's Pawn, where the main character's occasional use of the word "fuck" has such an impact because he's the only person who still uses such an antiquated swear word. A member of the opposition even calls it "quaint".
In Fragment, the President of the United States gets one of these, when the Henders Island natives appear on screen, revealing that a nonhuman race of intelligent beings exists and has befriended the camera crew.
In one of the Garrett, P.I. novels, Garrett is startled when his friend Morley says "Shit!", as Morley doesn't often use non-elven profanity. Circumstances, however, make it appropriate, as a carnivorous dinosaur just stuck its head in the window of the coach they're sitting in.
Used throughout David Weber's Safehold series. It's rather telling when the first line of dialogue from one of the Sinister Minister antagonists after their plan to destroy the protagonist kingdom fails spectacularly is "Who the fuck do these people think they are?"
The only occurence of a swear word stronger than "hell" or "damn" in The Bartimaeus Trilogy (and those were used pretty sparingly too) was when a minor character called Jane Faraar a bitch, which she takes as a compliment. (Fitting considering she's a werewolf, or at the very least, runs a team of werewolves.)
In the Temeraire novels we have a book and a half of swear words no stronger than damn or hell and then suddenly we get the line "Fire, fire you fucking yellow-arsed millers!"
The Dresden Files is rarely very shy about a few swears here and there, but some characters are less prone to bouts of language than others. In The Warrior a short story from Side Jobs Michael, a devout catholic man who has never in the 12 main books of the series said so much as hell or damn—and has repeatedly reproached Harry for using same—delivers the line: "The son of a bitch hurt my little girl." Coming from him, it's so shocking that even Harry is taken aback.
In Gun, With Occasional Music, the First-Person Smartass narrator ends one chapter, when he's just figured out something vital about his case, with "It was time to quit fucking around."
While the Nightside series doesn't exactly shun profanity, one stellar example of this trope appears in The Good, The Bad And The Uncanny, when Walker has the gall to speak approvingly of duty and responsibility to a woman who's lost all three of her sons to duty, one way or another. She tells him to fuck off, and John Taylor nearly bursts into applause when she does so.
In Crysis: Legion, normally mild Dr. Gould decides that the best analogy to describe the Nanosuit's intended purpose against the Ceph is gay rape on hanging flies. Everyone in the vicinity, even the wounded, is Dumb Struck.
In the fourth Kingdom Keepers novel, Wayne says "Damn" while demanding to check if Maleficent has escaped her cell at the end of the book. This is coming from a novel where no curse has ever before been written and rarely implied and "OMG" is stated out loud in place of the more blasphemous alternative.
Sylvia Plath's eloquent, haunting poem "Daddy" ends with "Daddy, you bastard, I'm through."
In Marilyn French's The Women's Room, Mira - in contrast to other members of the group - swears so little that the group find it hilarious when she tells them to 'go fuck themselves', which she sees as passing a sort of initiation test. On a more serious note, Ben realises just how angry Mira is with him when she screams, "FUCK OFF, BEN!"
Firefly, "Jaynestown". Kaylee mentioned that she never heard Simon swear, and Simon admits he only does it "when it's appropriate". Then they arrive in a dirt-poor town to find a statue of Jayne, the ship crew's Token Evil Teammate.
Simon: ...son of a bitch!
Earlier, in "Safe," River spouts the only "normal" curse she's ever spoken onscreen, to highlight just how badly her latest round of madness is driving her.
River: Stupid son of a bitch dressed me up like a gorram doll!
Book, being a preacher, hardly ever swears, either in English or in Chinese, but in the episode "War Stories," when Zoe and Wash return from Niska's base and Book learns that Niska has cut off Mal's ear, he lets loose with one of the worst Chinese swears on the show, translating to "filthy fornicators of livestock."
In Dexter, the eponymous main character swears very rarely - if he does drop the f bomb, he's either quoting someone "Not fucking good at all, apparently," or things have just gone straight to hell for him. "Oh, fuck."
Subverted by his sister, who primarily speaks in Cluster F-Bomb. It's even lampshaded when she does not swear.
Starting with Season 4, he started to swear at least once in every episode, from cases where he thinks he's really screwed, to... a bit confusion situations, but not that confused to warrant such reactions. This includes "What the fuck is going on here?" to a strangely emotion-filled human-line which he shouldn't say so easily: " 'the fuck?!"
Not necessarily, he's become generally more human as the series progresses. Each season arguably tracks a step in his emotional development.
Consider also that in the 4th and 5th seasons he is under far more stress than ever before for a variety of reasons, not least of which is his becoming a parent, and then a single parent.
In Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 3, the Mayor is quite Affably Evil; acting fairly friendly towards the heroes he's planning on destroying, and generally being an all around nice guy (who wants to turn into a giant snake monster). When Buffy puts Faith in a coma, the Mayor actually loses his composure and calls her a whore.
Subverted by the season finale, where he rushes into the library in his giant snake demon form...and sees tons of C4. His last words? "Well, gosh!"
Vampire Willow makes excellent use of this trope when she's sent back to her world, the Wishverse, only to emerge in the middle of a massive melee and be immediately impaled on a plank. She has just enough time to get out "Oh fu-".
The season 3 final of Heroes had two, from Claire and Sylar respectively. The show usually shies away from profanity, so Sylar's "The truth. Stings like a bitch." came across especially powerfully.
There is a much earlier example in an early episode of season 1 after Nathan has basically told thousands of people that Peter is suicidal. Peter punches his brother and shouts, "You son of a bitch!" To which Nathan calmly replies, "Careful, Pete. That's our mother you're talking about."
In a M*A*S*H episode, Radar (who never swears) shocks Hawkeye and B.J. when he says, "Oh.....HELL!" in frustration when he feels they are not taking Potter's horse's illness seriously. When they say "What?" in surprise at his exclamation, he clarifies: "You heard me! H-E-double toothpicks!!"
In an earlier episode, "Mad Dogs And Servicemen," Col. Blake tells bed-ridden Radar, who was bitten by a feral dog, that the dog was not rabid and he won't have to get any more rabies shots.
Radar (to God): A deal's a deal, Sir. No more "hells," "damns" and especially not the big one.
Spaced was allowed just the one "fuck" per show, according to the DVD commentaries. They went to some lengths to make sure that they used it in the funniest way possible.
In the UK version of The Office, a show which rarely if ever used the word "fuck", David Brent tells Chris Finch to fuck off in the Christmas Episode when he makes lewd and inappropriate remarks about Brent's new girlfriend. It's easily the Crowning Moment of Awesome for Brent, and the show.
The Star Trek episode "The City on the Edge of Forever", which ends with a heartbroken Kirk telling his crew "Let's get the hell out of here." (The word "hell" didn't exactly feature much on television during that era.)
Absolute Power: "Oh shit." Said by Charles when he realizes he's about to be arrested.
There's another example in episode one of the first season:
Charles: Nigel, I have some good news! Little bit of bad news first.
Nigel: Oh?
Charles: Your career, as we have hitherto understood it, is fucked.
The Middleman used this in the first episode, despite the fact the word in question was actually bleeped. The fact that his one and only swear word immediately followed a discussion about how odd it was that he never swears makes it all the funnier, as well as making it clear just how badly wrong things have gone.
And when in an alternate universe the alternate Middleman drops Cluster F Bombs all the time, the difference is made very clear.
Made perhaps funnier because Rhys Darby (the comedian who plays Murray) swears a LOT in his stand-up routines.
Red and Kitty Forman of That 70s Show don't swear too often (Red's Once an Episode instances of calling someone a dumbass aside), but when they do, you know they are well and truly pissed. Both of them actually have instances where they dropped a Cluster F-Bomb that was, of course, censored almost entirely with beeps. There's also one that was alluded to after Red discovered that Eric and Donna were engaged.
Eric: watching Red from the other side of a patio door I'm trying to read Red's lips so I know what he's saying, but I can't make it out that well. He keeps calling me a "stupid duck". * beat* Ahhhh.
Kitty is so holy and innocent that she can't even find it in her to tolerate the use of the word "ass", as common and not too offensive as it is. So when Kitty gets pissed and starts with the Red Forman-esque language, it can send shivers down one's spine.
Red: Donna wanted to get back together and you said no?
Eric: I said no.
Red: You said no?
Kitty: DUMBASS!
There was one instance in the Dona and Eric Are Engaged arc where Red commends Eric for sticking to his guns, which drives Kitty to lose all sense of composure or decorum and she screams at Red, using several sound effect bleeps in the space of about thirty seconds. It was the only time in the series that Kitty lost her composure like that, and it was the funniest, coolest moment of the series.
Robert Klein opened the very first HBO comedy special in 1975 by celebrating the fact that he was allowed to drop a consequence-free "fuck" on television.
The live actionSailor Moon generally had mild or no swearing, but in Makoto's/Sailor Jupiter's debut we got this exchange:
Makoto: How could you play with these girls' hearts like that?
Makoto: ...Fuck you! * Punches the youma in the face.*
The hosts on Mythbusters, particularly Adam, have a tendency to swear when something goes terribly wrong on a build. Or Adam hurts himself. Again.
Chappelle's Show had significant amounts of this trope. The more well known examples were when Wayne Brady starts swearing, and when he recounts Disneyland's Mickey Mouse greet him with " Oh, ho ho!! I'm, Rick James BITCH!!" In a high-pitched voice.
On the Top Ground Gear Force Comic Relief special, James May (who is normally pretty even-tempered, and doesn't normally go much beyond "Oh, cock" when things go pear-shaped) gets irritated with Clarkson for destroying his shed:
May: [brandishing a large timber] What time is this program on? Is it 10 o'clock?
Didier Drogba's (somewhat justified) rant into a TV camera after Chelsea were knocked out of the UEFA Champions League by Barcelona:
- "It's a disgrace, it's a fucking disgrace!"
Inverted in The Thick of It: Malcolm Tucker drops Cluster F Bombs constantly, but when he holds back on the swearing it's a sign that he's really angry.
- "If you don't run and get me some cheese I'll pull your head off and give you a spinedectomy."
- "In my quest to try and make you understand the level of my unhappiness, I'm likely to use an awful lot of what we would call 'violent sexual imagery', and I just wanted to check that neither of you would be terribly offended by that."
In the finale of the first season of Stargate SG-1, O'Neill (two Ls) refers to something just explained to him as "Bullshit." This was of course when the show was on Showtime, where swearing isn't as taboo, but even then there was very little profanity on the show.
Although it's a mild swear word, there's a scene in Stargate SG-1 when Daniel Jackson has just died (sort of) and come back. His first word is a slightly annoyed "crap". Not even the worst swear word ever used on the show, but still hilarious.
Episode?
Indeed, one must be specific when referencing a Daniel Death. When asked, there are anywhere from 6 to 22 deaths, if one includes alternate timelines/alternate universes/alternate Daniels etc...
"School's Out", the finale for Degrassi High, had one so memorable (on a series that had, until this point, never been very graphic or profane) that it became a Memetic Mutation in Canada. Watch it here.
Supernatural had a case of this in the fifth season. In all of Castiel's appearances up to this point, he had been very formal and very grave. Then "Free to Be You and Me" comes along and we see not one, but two examples of this:
Cas: Come and get me, you little bastard.
and
Raphael Castiel, I am warning you. Do not leave me here. I will find you.
Castiel has always been extremely respectful of his father/God, but in 'Dark Side of the Moon', also in Season 5 he finds out that God is walking the Earth, knows about everything that's happening, and doesn't care to get involved.
Castiel: I believed in you, you sonovabitch.
Cat Deeley has a reputation of being a very quiet, composed, sweet girl. It makes this appearance on a British parody show even funnier.
All in the Family had Edith go through menopause, and shout "Damn it!" during one of her mood swings out of nowhere. The episode is worth watching just for the audience's stunned reaction.
In Star Trek: The Next Generation, Jean Luc Picard is almost always well composed, diplomatic, and well spoken. However, in one episode he let loose with an exasperated "merde," which means "shit" in French (his native language).
Babylon 5 doesn't have a lot of swearing, besides the occasional "Oh hell," but manages to pull the occasional Precision F-Strike. The two most striking characters to pull this off are Timov, one of Londo's wife: in the middle of some very mild verbal fencing she manages to drop a "Bitch" that leaves everyone speechless. And, of all people, Delenn gets not one, but two. The second one has her barging in the room yelling "Bastards," shocking Sheridan: "Did she just...?". The most memorable however has to be:
Delenn: Abso-fraggin-lutely damnit. I have been studying your use of language. Do you approve?
Sheridan has a really nice one in his small altercation with Kosh Naranek. It is, of course, not a true f-word. The implication of the words used, and the way they are delivered (to one of the most powerful entities in the show) however, definitely qualifies it as a precision F-Strike.
Kosh: Leave. Now.
Sheridan: No!
Kosh: Disobedient!
Sheridan: Up yours!
In an episode of Mad About You Jamie invites Paul's mother to stay with them for the night, confident that the offer will be refused. When Paul's mother gratefully accepts the invitation, Jamie smiles broadly, turns to Paul, and almost under her breath mutters "Shit."
In the Bones episode, "The Baby in the Bough", Dr. Brennan gets one of these, in what is also both a CMOA and a CMOH. "There was a BABY in that car, you son of a bitch!"
Also, in "The Man with the Bone:" "Where the hell are my bones?!"
In the Big Love episode "Sins of the Father", Margene drops an "F you, Barb!" in front of Nikki and Barb after Barb accuses of her of being a cradle robber. She doesn't even use the word, but as the characters are polygamist fundamentalists it has the intended shocking effect.
In the ER episode "On the Beach", Dr. Mark Greene (dying of a brain tumor) falls when trying to get out of bed. He pounds the floor and utters a frustrated "SHIT!"
Captain Darling from Blackadder the Fourth keeps a diary during his time as a pencil pusher safe behind the lines during World War I. Upon being sent to the front lines in a misguided attempt by his insane boss to give him an honorable duty, he makes one last entry: "Bugger."
Lampshaded and parodied by Gus in an episode of Psych. "Shawn, you know I don't swear very often, so this is a big deal: what the hell was that about?!"
A 1970s Houston Oilers football game was being broadcast live on ABC's Monday Night Football, when the camera focused ona lone spectator in a section of the stands. Seeing he was on camera, the man gave the camera the finger. Announcer Don Meredith then quipped, "Well, there's somebody who thinks Houston's number one."
Kurt pulls one off in Glee. Everyone's jaws just drop.
Red Dwarf is generally very low on swearing (thanks partly to its liberal use of Unusual Euphemism), which is used to this effect on the few occasions where they use real swear words (such as the 'Twat it!' line in Polymorph).
Conan: I'm sorry, but what the fuck are you talking about?
Deadwood, of all shows, had a brilliant Precision F-Strike when upright, literally straitlaced, intimidatingly classy Alma Garrett urged E. B. Farnum to sell her his hotel: "What is it you males say? 'Shit, or get off the chamberpot'?"
There is a consistently high level of swearing in Skins but Katie's Series 4 episode is pretty effective in its "I'm Katie Fucking Fitch. Who the FUCK are you!"
In the British sitcom Drop the Dead Donkey the normally aloof Sally Smedley briefly finds religion and is nice to everybody. This situation comes to an end when she breaks up with her boyfriend. Unaware that she's back to normal, poor downtrodden George asks her an innocent question, to which she replies: "Oh, FUCK OFF, George!"
In the premiere episode of the Starz series "Camelot," while witnessing a tender reunion between Arthur and his biological mother, King Lot sneers and mutters "Oh, fuck this."
In BBC's Merlin, in which the worst language ever to be used is "damn", Arthur learns that he's been served with an arranged marriage and lets out a vehement "WHAT THE FFFFF—-" before the camera cuts away.
There's a pretty dramatic one from Scully in The X-Files episode 'Beyond the Sea'. It's particularly effective since, before this, she rather came across as The Stoic. When she learns that an (alleged) psychic's information has led her partner Mulder into a trap, seriously injuring him, and it was partly her fault for believing him, we get this exchange...
Scully: You set us up. You're in on this with Lucas Henry. This was a trap for Mulder because he helped put you away. Well, I came here to tell you that if he dies because of what you've done, four days from now nobody will stop me from being the one that'll throw the switch and gas you out of this life for good, you son of a bitch!
That's because it's Mulder. As mentioned on that page, Mulder and Scully are each other's Berserk Button.
Conan O' Brien had Ray Romano as a guest on his new TBS show. Ray related a story about a website with the classic "Fuck, Marry, Kill" game and took the time to ask if was okay to "say the F-Word" on cable. Ray goes through the story and uses "Eff" for every instance of the word. He was ranked against Drew Carey and Jerry Seinfeld, with 8 out of 12 votes in the "Kill" column. Whereas some people might view this as bad, Ray said, "It's really only the second worst choice, 'cause if you're not gonna fuck me just kill me."
In New Zealand in 1979, Arthur Baysting, as his comedy alter ego Neville Purvis, dropped the F-bomb during the end credits of his character's namesake show - the first incidence of its type on New Zealand TV. The show was immediately cancelled amidst the ensuing controversy, and Baysting was forced to work in Australia for some years.
Being a family program, Doctor Who usually keeps the language pretty clean - the Doctor in particular. Therefore, when he greets River Song in A Good Man Goes to War with a furious "Where the HELL were you today?" it's a true sign of how uncharacteristically angry he is.
In the Rashomon Style episode about Patrick and Sally's first kiss, we see a scene from Sally's memory in which Susan complains about how she's always stuck with calling a taxi for the office drunk. "It's becoming part of my job description." Sally tells her this is "a bit unfair." We then see Patrick's version of events (though he was not present for this exchange), in which Sally is the aforementioned "office drunk", and declares that "That is a fucking shame!
The final episode has two - one from Sally when she finds the engagement ring in Patrick's cupboard (though this quickly turns into a Cluster F-Bomb), and one from Susan while in labour: "Steve, GET ME A FUCKING EPIDURAL!"
There's this Belgian game show, Blokken, that's been on the air for 18 seasons now. Basically, it's trivia combined with Tetris. Here's a clip from a celebrity edition. Most of it's in Dutch, but at about 2:10 in, the guy in the yellow shirt says to his opponent, "Bart... shut fuck up." (Yes, that's exactly how he said it.)
Machinima
Red vs. Blue: Reconstruction, the new character Wash doesn't swear much. So in his final moment, when hearing a computer terminal use the word emp (when he had been repeatedly telling everyone is pronounced "E-M-P"), he basically goes out with his final line being:
Wash: Emp? You have got to be fucking kidding m-
The machinima "Beans", a crossover of 3 separate Super Smash Bros.. Brawl series, has one of these. The character Super64, a character from a series where nearly no one cusses at all, utters "Both of you, shut the FUCK up!!" to get 2 of the other characters to stop arguing and focus on the task at hand. Both of them (who happen to use the Cluster F-Bomb quite a bit, including in this moment) immediately stop arguing and stare at him in disbelief over what they had just heard
Music
Kate Nash's cute, bubbly pop song, 'Doo-Wah-Doo', ends with this line:
Well I think she's a bitch.
Faith No More - In the song 'The Gentle Art of Making Enemies': "Happy birthday, FUCKER!" Also, later in the song: "Cause I'm the best FUCK that you ever had".
"Devil Went Down to Georgia" by the Charlie Daniels Band:
"I told you once, you son of a bitch, I'm the best there's ever been.
Averted on the single release for AM stations. The line was changed to "you son of a gun."
During at least David Wilcox's performances of "Moe", we get this line:
"But, damn, if that was not the year they signed up / A replacement in the line-up / And so it went *gasps* / My father looked like SHEMP!"
"Weird Al" Yankovic. "Don't Download This Song". Don't believe me? Here's the final chorus:
Don't download this song Or you'll burn in Hell before too long (and you'll deserve it!) Go and buy the CD (go and buy it!) like you know that you should (you cheap bastard!) Oh, don't download this song
In "Another Tattoo", he gets a Curse Cut Short at the end of the song.
Also "Hurricane" ("Had no idea what kinda shit was about to go down") and "George Jackson" ("He wouldn't take shit from no one")
James Blunt's You're Beautiful has the line (which was naturally censored for radio broadcast):
"She could see from my face that I was
"Fucking high."
On Top Gear, he also belted out a "C'mon you little fucker!" while doing a lap in the reasonably priced car.
Graffiti the World by Rehab is about how warped and abusive the world really is. It's kept clean until the very last line:
"I realized just how tainted our thinking really is while in New York when I saw a teenager being arrested for taggin' a fuckin' wall."
Metallica's ...And Justice For All album, known as the band's "angry" album, is seething with hostility and rage at the more hypocritical elements of our society throughout. In spite of this, the album contains only one lyrical F-bomb, in the final track, "Dyers Eve". It is awesome. (The album booklet is a different story; Metallica's usual sophomoric sense of humor, rife with swear words left and right, is in full force on the album's liner notes).
The sticker on Master of Puppets warns us that there'd be only one song on the whole album with major swearing: "Damage, Inc.", which has THREE Precision F Strikes.
More specifically, "Slamming through, don't FUCK with razorback", and "FUCK it all and FUCKING no regrets"
This second line is repeated in "St. Anger"
James Hetfield also makes it a habit during live performances to switch more innocuous words with a Precision F Strike. You can hear it the live versions of "The Four Horsemen" (Time, it's taken a SHIT on you, the lines that crack your face), "Master of Puppets" (Dedicated to... HOW I'M FUCKING YOU!), "One" (Tied to machines that make me be... CUT THIS SHIT OFF FROM ME!), and" Enter Sandman" (I'll FUCK you in, warm within, keep you free from sin 'till the Sandman comes).
Fear Factory singer Burton C. Bell utilizes this trope at least twice in the album Demanufacture.
in the title track, he just yells "FUCK!" before a brief interlude.
"(H-K) Hunter-Killer" has the line "They FUCKING say!" twice.
Some versions of "The End" by The Doors don't finish the sentence "Mother, I want to..." Others do.
Both Slipknot and Disturbed avoid using any cussing in their third albums, much unlike their previous work. The albums that came after that (All Hope is Gone and Indestructible respectively) used the swearing that was there sparingly.
Meat Loaf's song "Life Is a Lemon and I Want My Money Back" on the album "Bat Out of Hell II" features the rare use of a swear word (ass) by Him.
Jonathan Coulton does this several times, and you can spot someone who hasn't heard the song by the fact they do a double-take. For example, in "First of May", it happens in the chorus:
"It's the first of May, first of May, outdoor fucking starts today..."
Another one on "Sticking it to myself":
"I'm trying to figure something, makes me feel, like I'd do anything it takes to be a fucking winner now!"
From Doctor Jimmy: "Her fella's gonna kill me? OH FUCKING WILL HE?"
And, in a Real Life example, Townshend telling Abbie Hoffman to "get off my fucking stage" when the latter interrupted their set at Woodstock to bitch about John Sinclair's imprisonment for marijuana possession.
Michael and Janet Jackson's "Scream", a very angry and confrontational song, features this in one of the last choruses. Notable because Michael Jackson usually shied away from profanity.
Stop pressurin' me,
Stop pressurin' me,
Stop fuckin' with me,
Makes me wanna Scream
Michael also did a precision S Strike in "This Time Around". To be specific, the HI Story album had a lot of angry songs where Mr. Jackson would swear. (Damn in "Earth Song", Shit and Bitch in "Morphine", etc.)
Somebody's out
Somebody's out to get me
They really wanna fix me, hit me
But this time around I'm taking no shit
Though you really wanna get me
You really wanna get me
Nightwish does this in their song Master Passion Greed. The swearing in other songs is limited to "damn," "hell," and even a "bastard" here and there. However, in Master Passion Greed, it's "I fuck up everything but let me explain" in the second verse.
However, Bassist/Vocalist Marco Hietala drops the f-bomb frequently during live performances (in both English and Finnish)
Lady Gaga usually makes her sexual references in songs at least slightly hidden. Her f-strikes are so well done that, for example, the f-bomb in "Poker Face" (in the line "P-p-p-p-poker face, p-p-fuck her face") was undetected for over a year (and Weird Al uses the Mondegreen version, "P-p-p-p-poker face, p-p-poker face" as censorship when covering it as part of his polka medley "Polka Face"). Also, for example, in "Monster":
I asked my girlfriend if I'd seen him 'round before
She mumbled something as we got down on the floor, baby
We might have fucked, not really sure, don't quite recall
But something tells me that I've seen him, yeah
She also says "shit" in Paparazzi: "snap snap to that shit on the radio".
Midtown gives a great example on "As Long As We Keep Our Bodies Numb, We're Safe". After the first verse and chorus, the song goes into a short instrumental bridge. Then the music suddenly stops and we are treated to a loud and enthusiastic "Fuck what you know!" Especially funny considering the name of the album was Forget What You Know.
The Something Corporate song "If You C Jordan" builds up to the final "fuck you Jordan."
Same band: My Konstantine. After most of the way through a nine-minute, quiet, introspective song that has used exactly one "damn" and exactly one "hell" in situations when stronger words might have been appropriate... "This is to a girl who got into my head with all those fucked-up things I did." Emphasis is the song's, and the sheer viciousness makes it seem very precise.
Alanis Morissette with her song "You Oughta Know." Although the song has a number of sex references, none are as blatant as the line "Are you thinking of me when you fuck her?"
A Perfect Circle holds off on the cursing until near the end of "Passive" (repeating the line "passive-aggressive bullshit" over and over as the song fades out), but they only use the F-word twice in the song. The first time just sounds like an agitated "You fucking disappoint me," but the second time is a much more profound "You FUCKING disappoint me!!" First f-strike comes around 3:05 and the second will follow afterwards.
A brilliant tactical F strike from Bloc Party's "Positive Tension":
Why'd you have to get so hysterical?
Why'd you have to get so hysterical? (6x)
Why'd you have to get...so fuckin' useless?
...it works in context.
Avenged Sevenfold's Critical Acclaim has no less than THREE, one at the beginning of the first verse and two in M Shadow's rants following the first and second choruses.
Don't forget Nightmare "It's your fucking nightmare."
Three Days Grace rarely swear in the music, with the exception of "fucked up" in their song "Riot". This bit is often edited to say "messed up" when played on public radio, although the swear word wasn't used in a sexual context.
the chorus of Three Days Grace's "Over-rated" has the line "Your shit is overrated," which is repeated many times, and "gone forever" has the line "so I'll stay out all night, get drunk and fuck and fight." Adam Gontier also swears a lot during live performances. Still, Three Days Grace is usually pretty conservative with their profanity in comparison to other bands and recording artists out there.
Despite their tendency to swear profusely in interviews the brothers Gallagher have only had two songs featuring the word fuck in their discography, the track 'Fuckin' In The Bushes' from Standing On The Shoulder Of Giants, where the eponymous phrase is uttered by a recording (there is no actual vocal on the song), and the Liam-written, 'Pass Me Down The Wine', a b-side to the single 'The Importance Of Being Idle'.
Rise Against's song "Rumors of My Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated" has one particularly strong F-bomb near the end:
We came in search of answers.
We left empty handed again.
Shots fired into the sky are now returning.
Where the fuck will you hide?
Because Rise Against rarely use any unsavoury language, any song that has cursing could be considered this.
The entire album could be considered a precision strike, as Siren Song of the Counter Culture avoided the dreaded sticker despite having a couple noticeable fucks (By comparison, the next release The Sufferer and the Witness has the sticker for swearing in a single song).
From the Endgame album in the song Survivor Guilt
The shout out from their pedestals
with words like courage and resolve
but what they meant was fuck em all
cause freedom isn't free
An obscure protopunk group from the 70s, the Electric Eels, released a 1991 compilation album titled "God Says Fuck You."
Tori Amos's song "The Waitress" has one, in the loud, shrill chorus following the quiet, subdued tones in the verses
But I believe in peace
I believe in peace, BITCH
In Green Day's song "Too Much Too Soon", there is one right in the middle, during the bridge. Swearing is prevalent with Green Day, but the way it's used in this song (especially the Broadway version) is much heavier than previous swears.
When Dookie was first released, swearing in mainstream music was not as common as it became a few years later, so when Billie Joe utters the lyrics "You're fucking lazy" in the leadoff single "Longview", it was a shock to a lot of people who weren't used to it.
Bruce Springsteen, in the song "Long Time Comin'," on the subject of raising a child:
"I Reach 'neath your shirt, lay my hands across your belly
In their eyes there's something lacking What they need's a damn good whacking
What makes this even funnier is that it was George's mother, of all people, who suggested the line.
OTOH, John Lennon's solo "Working Class Hero" has this doozy:
Keep you doped up with religion and sex and TV And you think you're so clever and classless and free But you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see
Iron Maiden's only album song with profanity (a few b-sides recorded just for laughs fit Cluster F-Bomb) is "Holy Smoke", with two ("Flies around shit, bees around honey" and the much more effective "I've lived in filth, I've lived in sin, and I still smell cleaner than the shit you're in!").
Related to Maiden, on the forum Maidenfans, the song "Paschendale" is usually known as "Paschenfuckingdale", PFD for short, for being a Crowning Music of Awesome.
While the Foo Fighters have a few songs with swearing, "Word Forward" is the one that works best:
Years that I've wasted These I owe you's They're just fucking words!
In 8 albums (roughly 5 hours of music), Weezer employs the F Stike precisely once— and Lil Wayne is the one who drops it, on Raditude's "Can't Stop Partying."
And the unusual is the fuckin' usual
Man my life is beauitful, and my girls are mutual
There is also one F Strike on the full-band version of "My Brain (Is Workin' Overtime)," but this version was never officially released. Rivers Cuomo's officially-released solo version omits the entire verse.
I tell the world to fuck itself
Cause who decides what's sick or healthy?
''The Assumption Song'' narrowly avoids using swear words throughout most of the song, and has a single dirty word at the end.
I'm no fucking buddhist, but thus is enlightenment
Paramore's lyricist Hayley Williams has never sworn in a song (unless you count "whore" as a swear word, which in itself could be a Precision F Strike for a band like them) so there was quite a commotion when her solo song Teenagers was released containing the line "don't ask me where I'll go, 'cause frankly I don't know and I don't give a shit."
The band fun.'s debut album was pretty much entirely clean, until this moment in the 7-minute closing song "Take Your Time (Coming Home)":
If it's true, then what the fuck have I been doing the last six years?
While Amanda Palmer likes to throw the word 'Fuck' around absolutely everywhere it can fit, Jeep Song in completely swear-free except for one, mind-blowingly powerful line;
I guess it's just my stupid luck/that all of Boston/drives the same black fucking truck
Bloc Party in the song Positive Tension. The music builds and builds and then stops for just long enough for him to yell, "So fucking useless."
Toad The Wet Sprocket's "Hold Her Down" is their only song to include any cursing ("and they don't know her, but what the fuck, they've got nothing else they can do"). It's about outrage on behalf of a rape victim, which is probably why they considered it a justified use.
The normally quiet and polite Cowboy Junkies drop one in the feminism-tinged "Floorboard Blues." Cue howls of approval from the audience, and a "Parental Advisory" sticker from the record company.
Don't accuse me of runnin' scared, listen to what I'm sayin'
It's a fucked up ol' world, mama, but this ol' girl, well... she ain't givin' in.
The only song in Billy Joel's entire recorded output to contain an F-bomb is "Laura", from The Nylon Curtain.
99 years underneath that ground; I can't forget the day I shot that bad bitch down!
Curiously, the "son of a bitch" was bleeped out of the original recording of Live at San Quentin ... even though, in the earlier Folsom Prison album, the "bad bitch" line from "Cocaine Blues" and Johnny's line about how "you can't say 'shit' or 'hell'" (cited in the Film examples above) stayed in the recording unaltered.
I look out the window but I can't see the sky The air pollution is a-fuckin' up my eyes
As a way of Getting Crap Past the Radar (since it was put out as a single) the lyric sheet claimed it was "the air pollution is a-foggin' up my eyes".
While the band Behemoth is no stranger to using the f-word in their music, the song "Slaves Shall Serve" is a perfect invocation of this trope, at the song's climax, screaming the name of the song 8 times, ending it with "SLAVES!!! SHALL!!!FUCKINGSERVE!!!"
Mumford and Sons' Little Lion Man. Yes, the chorus has the f-strike, but it still must count.
It was not your fault but mine, and it was your heart on the line, I really FUCKED it up this time, didn't I my dear?
The fact that this is the only time that they've used the word (or any cursing, for that matter) in all the songs they've written so far gives it that much more of an impact.
Dream Theater's album Train of Thought has two f-strikes, one in two different songs. These are the only two times such word has been used in their discography.
Pretenders began their career with one. "Precious", the opening track from their debut album, lands one conspicuously at the end of the bridge leading into the final chorus:
"But not me, baby, I'm too precious, fuck off!"
The rest of the album explores the common pop-song subjects of sex, relationships, domestic violence, and gang rape in relatively clean language.
Hamell On Trial's "John Lennon" is a spoken-word ballad about his attempt as a teenager to meet John Lennon. After a very lengthy setup, he finally does, and...
Touch & Go's "Tango In Harlem" has one, when the narrator talks about being mugged and refusing to hand over the $50 she has on her, instead telling her attacker "Fuck you!". It's also a Crowning Moment of Funny.
On Devin Townsend's Deconstruction, the singular f-bomb is dropped pretty early on in the first track "Praise the Lowered". "Smoke that FUCKING weed, boy!", the reason this is so effective is because Devin hasn't said "Fuck" on any of his records since the last Strapping Young Lad album, plus the obvious emphasis on that one line makes it even better.
U2: "And a fucked-up world it is, too" in "Wake Up Dead Man". The one time they've used it in a song, EVER, so it's rather jarring, especially in the last song on the album.
Enter Shikari do this excellently in their song Enter Shikari. The first word in the first song on their first album is singer Rou Reynolds shouting 'SHIT!', backed up by people screaming. Now that's a precision strike.
CAKE's cover of "I Will Survive" changes the lyric "stupid lock" to "fucking lock". Gloria Gaynor was not pleased.
Panic At The Disco had "Lying Is The Most Fun a Girl Can Have Without Taking Her Clothes Off". Keep in mind that they rarely said anything worse than "whore" and "goddamn".
I have more wit, a better kiss, a hotter touch, a better fuck.
Skeletonwitch: FIIIYAAAARRR FROM THE MOOOTHEEEER FUCKING SKKKKKYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!
Pearl Jam has a few, specially "Save You", which opens with the line "I'm gonna save you, fucker".
"Jeremy" also drops one in the second verse when talking about how his bullying led to breaking him: "Clearly I remember picking on the boy / Seemed a harmless little fuck / Oh, but we unleashed a lion."
Aerosmith has a few ("Feedin' that fuckin' monkey on my back!", "I feel like I've been hit by a fuck", etc.). Like James Hetfield, Steven Tyler even adds some live ("I fuck with my boots on cause you fuck with my head").
P!nk certainly isn't afraid to swear, but it tends to be specific. For example, the chorus of "Last to Know":
You could have called me up to wish me luck
You could have called me back you stupid fuck
Guns N' Roses, known for being Sir Swearsalot in many of their songs (including "It's So Easy", "Out Ta Get Me", "One in a Million", "You're (Fucking) Crazy", "Perfect Crime", "Get in the Ring", "Buick Mackane/Big Dumb Sex", and "I Don't Care About You"), is surprisingly restrained on Chinese Democracy, which has only two F-words across 14 songs, only one of which is used by lead singer/resident Ted Baxter W. Axl Rose (in "Riad and the Bedouins"), the other F-word being spoken by Gene Hackman in a sample from Mississippi Burning featured in the song "Madagascar".
Australian musician Josh Pyke's "The Lighthouse Song" is a mellow little love song with this line in the chorus:
I'll just hold you tight/And we'll not let those fuckers in
Newspaper Comics
In Doonesbury, the author pushed to allow B.D. to swear ("SON OF A BITCH!") when he wakes up after losing a leg in Iraq. This is significant because newspaper comics have extremely strict clamps on their subject matter. A few papers dropped the strip, most simply edited the line; a few kept it as-is, with the paper's editor stating it was justified.
More recently was Melissa saying "That's sergeant bitch to you" which seemed to just be for the sake of the punchline.
"All these people talk about being students of the game. I AM the fucking game!! No one eats, sleeps or breathes this business more than me!!!"
"This is not a joke! I am not a joke! I am serious! and You will not look past me, YOU STUPID SON OF A BITCH!"
While WWE is in the middle of its PG era, hearing Mae Young call the universally loathed Lay Cool "these sluts" cheered up everybody's day.
Similarly, John Cena once vowed to kick CM Punk's ass on an early January 2011 episode of WWE Raw.
CM Punk tells John Laurinaitis that if he screws him out of the WWE Championship at the Royal Rumble against Dolph Ziggler, Punk'll have to go to jail for animal cruelty because "I'm gonna beat you like a bitch." The crowd explodes.
Stand-Up
Played straight, then lampshaded into Cluster F-Bomb territory in Louis-José Houde's special Suivre la parade during an extended bit about his ex-girlfriend's abortion. He describes going home after the procedure and (after wishing his own father a happy birthday) listening to a new voicemail message from his agent: he's just won an award from a kids' TV station for "the performer that you'd would most like as a dad."
Houde:(after a long pause, quietly) ...Tabarnac. (audience laughs) I'm sorry, there's one swear word in the show, there it is — tabarnac. It's a tabarnac case, I have to, I'm sorry. At that moment in your life, I swear, that's what comes out — tabarnac. Tabarnac, tabarnac, tabarnac.
Theatre
At the end of Arsenic and Old Lace, Mortimer Brewster discovers that he doesn't need to worry about craziness being In the Blood, since he's actually the illegitimate child of a maidservant. The play ends with him exuberantly proclaiming himself a bastard.
This was changed in The Movie, where he instead runs down the street yelling, "I'm the son of a sea cook!" Still funny, but for a different reason.
John Wilkes Booth justifies his murder by calling Lincoln a tyrant, butcher, war-mongerer, and so forth. His high-minded rhetoric is undercut when he calls Lincoln a nigger-lover.
Sam Byck drops one at the beginning of "Another National Anthem":
"Where's my prize? ... I want my prize ... Don't I get a prize? ... I deserve a fucking prize!"
Captain Corcoran in H. M. S. Pinafore is responsible for the one and only instance of swearing in the Gilbert and Sullivan canon: "Why damme, it's too bad!" It's still enough to shock the rest of the cast.
It's especially shocking due to the fact that towards the beginning of the play, they sing a song about how he
Capt. Corcoran: ...Never say a big, big D.
Chorus: What, never?
Corcoran: No, never.
Chorus: ''What, never?
Corcoarn: Well... hardly ever.
Though it's not in the text of The Pirates of Penzance, many productions have the exasperated Major-General shouting, "But damme, you don't go!" near the end of the ensemble "When the foeman bares his steel."
Also, in Utopia Ltd., King Paramount says "da-" twice, but is cut off before he can finish.
Frank-N-Furter: It's something you'll get used to! A mental mind fuck can be nice!
In the "The Gin Game" a man and a woman in a nursing home are playing gin against each other. He constantly uses the F word on her because she keeps winning. At one point he is so nasty to her she says, but unable to find a strong enough word to adequately describe him, "You are a horrible person, you... you... You FUCK!" She then is shocked, admitting it's the only time she ever used the word.
One of the most audience-startling moments in George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion when it was first produced was when Liza, conversing with Freddy and his mother in a scrupulously refined accent, suddenly dropped the word "bloody".
Somewhat surprisingly, Jerry Springer: The Opera. The show is famously rich in profanity which should dilute its impact, but the song "I just wanna dance" manages to pull off a Precision F Strike with full emotional effect.
Shawntel:I wanna do some living, 'cause I've done enough dying. I just wanna dance. I just wanna fucking dance.
In Spamalot, King Arthur has a solo number bemoaning how alone he is... right in front of his horse/servant/squire, who gets increasingly frustrated by this as the song goes on.
Arthur: I'm all alone...
Patsy: Oh no you're not!
Arthur: So all alone...
Patsy: I'm HERE, you twat!
Sadly bowdlerized in West Side Story: Stephen Sondheim originally wrote the last like of "Gee, Officer Krupke" as "Gee, Office Krupke, FUCK YOU!" but was forced to change it to the very silly "Krup you!", much to his chagrin.
At the end of the play Oleanna by David Mamet, you can hear what is quite possibly the best line uttered by any character anywhere. The teacher, John, holds a chair above his head, aiming it at his former student Carol and utters the line, "I wouldn't touch you with a ten foot pole, you little cunt!".
Vanities: "Big fucking deal!"(Joanne in Scene 2) "Whoa, oh shit!"(Joanne again, near the end of "The Same Old Music") "What shit will you say next?"(Mary in "The Argument") "Trying to figure out what the fuck to do."(Joanne again, in the final scene/epilogue)
In Working, the truckers use the f-word freely, but we expect that kind of language from a truck driver. When the schoolteacher says "damn", however, it's shocking because we aren't expecting it from her.
The last act of Nixon In China has perhaps the first such example in the history of opera: "We'll teach these motherfuckers how to dance!" The fact that said line is sung by a coloratura soprano makes it all the better.
Cathy uses this at least twice during The Last Five Years, specifically in the songs "See I'm Smiling" and "Climbing Uphill":
"You could stay with your wife on her fucking birthday, and you could, God-forbid, even see my show!"
"Don't look at my resume, I made up half my resume! Stop looking at that, look at me! No, not at my shoes, I hate these fucking shoes!"
Video Games
The one time Artyom speaks in Metro 2033 is when he yells "guhhh-fffFUCK" when he notices that a derailed train is about to crush him into the ground.
The Metal Gear series is very low on swearing, so the one F-bomb in Metal Gear Solid 4 is a laser guided Precision F Strike indeed. Delivered by what turns out to be a mind raped psychopathic teenage girl who never stopped her deranged laughing for years, "It's all so FUCKING HYSTERICAL!!!" manages to creep you like you wouldn't believe.
Especially considering the creepy nature of the entire boss fight, against an enemy who uses stealth against you. Cue the nightmares.
In the Japanese released, the award goes to EVA in Metal Gear Solid 3, who, when cornered by Big Bad Volgin, broke out the Gratuitous English to snarl 'fuck you' before trying to shoot at him with a concealed gun. In the English version, the line was changed to the more innocuous 'go to hell' - although it was saved by the voice actress's delivery.
At the apex of the story in Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories (a Disney game of all things), Axel rewards himself with one of these for a job well done, although it was rewritten into a different, F Strike-less line in the PS2 version.
In Mega Man 7, Bass throws in a rather unexpected "damn" in a dialogue toward the end of Shade Man's stage. Mild by the standards of a T-rated game, of course, but it was quite surprising in a KA-rated SNES game. Too bad it was taken out in the Anniversary Collection.
Mega Man X had a couple "damn"s in the early games, which were kept in the X Collection. Although the fourth game missed its chance by having a late boss character shout, "See you in the underworld!" rather than the less unwieldy "See You In Hell!"
In the X Collection, one "damn" (from X no less) was actually added for some reason.
Mega Man Battle Network 2 also has one, when, after you defeat MagnetMan, and expose Gauss as the hijacker, he lets out a rather unexpected "Damn it to hell!"
MMBN2 had several other times incidences as well, unlike the rest of the series. Oh, and the guy wasn't hijacking the plane, he was trying to crash it.
Example using mild swears: despite being rated T, Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance almost always uses words like "blast" and "dastard". Ike only says "damn" if he dies (which is also Game Over).
In Gradius V, if you lose your last life after having gone through 6 stages on a single credit, the announcer exclaims, "What the hell?"
In Half-Life 2, Dr. Breen, ever the the classy and intelligent villain, never stating so much as a "darn," let's out a loud and clear "Oh, shit!" when he sees Gordon and Alyx are close behind him during his conversation with an Advisor.
The same game brings us Barney Calhoun, the Ensemble Darkhorse. "Hey! When you see Breen, tell him I said "'F(* crash* ) you!'"
In Team Fortress 2's "Meet the Spy" the BLU spy drops a Yo Momma Joke, quickly followed by a (censored) F Strike. Since the Spy has always been the picture of sophistication, these two combine to be absolutely hilarious.
BLU Scout: What are you, the President of his fan club?
BLU Spy: ...No. That would be your mother. *produces compromising pictures of the Scout's mother and the RED Spy*
BLU Scout: What the?...
BLU Spy: Indeed. And now he's here to f*ck us! So listen up, boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today.
In Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia, the third boss in the game consists of a gigantic crab that the heroine Shanoa must fight all the way up a lighthouse. At the top, Shanoa gets into an elevator, tells the crab to "go to Hell," rides the elevator all the way down, crushing the crab. This is made all the more awesome by the line appearing as a sound bite rather than as a text box.
It bears mention that the original Japanese phrase ("Jigoku ni ochiro.") literally translates to "Fall into Hell." and, when used in its entirety, is at least somewhat less offensive than its English equivalent.
Also in Castlevania: Castlevania Judgment has one of Grant's "damn"age grunts be a certain four-letter word. Can you guess what it is?
1213 has exactly one piece of profanity, and in the special edition commentary, Yahtzee makes note of how it emphasises how absolutely pissed off the guy saying it is:
Westbury: "How much these things cost? Is that all you have to say? You... You... YOU FUCKING BUREAUCRAT!" * BANG*
The Warcraft games don't shy away from milder curses like "damn" or "hell", but the harsher ones can still be surprising:
Sylvanas Windrunner: (to Arthas in Warcraft III) Give my regards to hell, you son of a bitch!
(After being scolded by Garithos in Warcraft III) Dwarf Rifleman: They did not pay us enough to put up with that arsehole
Garrosh Hellscream: (to Sylvanas in World of Warcraft): Watch your clever mouth, bitch.
In the X68000 version of Thunder Force II, losing your last life causes the player character to shout "Shit!"
In the white chamber, though she uses other swear words throughout the game, Sarah uses the F word only once, when she's being shocked in an electric chair and the laser gun beside her doesn't work.
In the final moments of Modern Warfare 2, you, as Soap, get stabbed in the chest by General Shepherd, whom you've been chasing for the majority of the last mission. As you stir, he gives you his Motive Rant, starting:
Shepherd: Five years ago, I lost 30,000 men in the blink of an eye. And the world just fuckin' watched.
In the Japanese audio for Sonic Adventure, Sonic says "shit" once. Translated to something along the lines of "darn" in the American version.
Though it's not as vulgar as the other examples on this page, there IS one moment from the normally G-rated language Final Fantasy VIII that deserves a mention. When one minor character very NEARLY kills another by accident (by hanging him with a fishing line, no less), the almost-victim understandably berates his idiotic pal, finishing up by calling him "DUMBASS!" Complete with red text and a slashing sound as the word as said, to drive home the point that yes, this is as foul as the language is going to get. Maybe they were trying to avoid what happened with Final Fantasy VII.
FFVIII has two other notable instances. One is when Zone, one of Those Two Guys, lays into Squall for letting Rinoa get hurt: "YOU SON OF A BITCH!" the other is when Squall and party overhear fatherly and normally ineffectual Headmaster Cid arguing with Garden Master NORG:
Headmaster Cid: "Greedy son-of-a-bitch! Why did I ever bother talking to you! SeeDs were brought up for the future! And that future is now! Why can't you understand!? Dammit! I should've never trusted you! I wish I could go back ten or so years. To tell myself that you're nothing but a money grubbing son-of-a-bitch!"
Sidonis also drops one after you tell him that Garrus is trying to put a bullet in his head.
Shepard: I'm the only thing between you and a bullet in the head.
Sidonis: Fuck.
Also, if you play as a paragon Shepard, flipping off to The Illusive Man becomes this (Seriously, the man was an asshole. Who didn't want to do it?)
Shepard: I'm sorry, I'm having trouble hearing you. Getting a lot of bullshit on this line.
And if you've got enough points to make the Renegade speech at Tali's trial:
Shepard: Do whatever you want with your toy ships! But leave my crew out of your political BULLSHIT!
And in the same incident, Kal'Reeger if he's still alive.
Kal'Reeger: Tali's done more for this fleet than you assholes ever will!
And again during Tali's trial, Tali herself combines this with Pardon My Klingon.
Tali" I'm looking for my father you bosh'tet!
And lets not forget Udina's entrance if Anderson was picked to the Council
Udina: — Do the words "political shitstorm" mean anything to you?
Similarly, in Fallout 3, if you've been playing with positive karma, you get the opportunity to pull one off when you're being captured and interrogated by Col. Autumn, who wants the activation code for the purification device.
Autumn: You tell me that code, and maybe we can work out a deal for you.
The Lone Wanderer: Fuck you. I'm not telling you anything.
Autumn: I'll be honest. I'm running out of patience here, and I'm not looking to play games with you. You tell me that code, or it's going to cost you.
The Lone Wanderer: No, seriously. Fuck you.
You can say this with negative karma, but it doesn't have that same OOMF to it as it does with positive karma.
StarCraft plays both sides of this trope. Units will frequently refer to "chicken-[beep] outfits" and not having time to "f[beep]k around", but in cutscenes "shit" and the like are thrown uncensored whenever it's deemed dramatic enough.
Remember Kerrigan calling herself the queen bitch of the galaxy? The (unofficial) hungarian version made her the Fuckin' Queen of the galaxy.
Bayonetta, surprisingly, as Bayonetta herself actually doesn't swear much in-game.
In Final Fantasy XIII, Sazh's baby pet Chocobo actually pulls one of these off when "The Pulsian Chocobos are being attacked by your mission target", which Sazh can easily translate.
Some of the characters in Killer7 let these out after hitting a Heaven Smile's weak spot - young punk Con Smith jubilantly shouts "FUCK you!" and shady thief Coyote Smith snarls, "You're fucked." Depending on how good the player is at hitting the Smiles' weak points, this can quickly turn into a Cluster F-Bomb.
Henry Townshend of Silent Hill 4 have a "What the hell?" which is used repeatly around the first part of the game.
Heather from Silent Hill 3, right when Claudia plan is about to come to fruition: "SHUT YOUR STINKING MOUTH, BITCH!".
In Primal, when Jen encounters her first demon, she slowly looks up his body and to his face and summarizes her emotions with one heartfelt "Ohh... shit!"
Sam Fisher of Splinter Cell hardly ever curses, which is particularly noticable in Conviction, where he's pitted against Mooks who prefer ClusterFBombs So, throughout the game he has a few that really stand out, particularly when he tells people to go fuck themselves.
In Malta, having no family left, his agency wanting to kill him, trying to find a reason to go on, Sam is pursued by thugs hired by a drug and arms dealer to kill him. After easily (and brutally) taking care of the Mooks, he finds the leader who tried to run away, but ran into a dead end in a bathroom.
Sam: Looking for me asshole?
In a Flash Back mission during the Gulf War, Sam is captured by (presumably) Ba'athist soldiers and is interrogated by two men, and apparently of the English those two men have learned, half are vulgar terms. When they threaten to Electric Torture Sam, his only response is a quiet, gruff "Go fuck yourselves. I'll be here when you're done." For maximum effect, barge in and rescue Sam right after this point, but right before they start torturing him.
Then there's this exchange. Keep in mind, Sam has been shot in the shoulder and had his hands bound by Grim, who for all Sam knew at that point may have still been suffering from Chronic Backstabbing Disorder due to what had been going on throughout the game. He's in front of a similarly captive President, Smug Snake Tom Reed, and about 5 actual highly trained splinter cells, and he still drops one.
Tom Reed: So Sam, how does it feel knowing you're about to go down in history as the man who assassinated President Caldwell?
And if there was such thing as a Stealth F-Strike, try using the Angry emote after Ryu Kou steals the Magma Orb.
Karis: Wow... graphic!
In Persona3 Portable, Stepford Smiler Saori casually uses an S-strike at one point, just to see what it feels like to say whatever she wishes. Given that her S-Link keeps steadily rolling downhill, the poor girl's probably due a few of these.
Persona 4 gives the main character a chance to say "Calm the hell down!" during a particularly... tense... moment after his cousin/surrogate little sister seemingly dies and the main characters contemplate killing the man they think is responsible. The above line is used in order to calm down the protagonist's understandably furious friends and get them to think more rationally. The protagonist can curse several times throughout the game, but the delivery of this is what makes it especially poignant; He YELLS and gets visibly angry for the first, and only, time in the entire game.
In Rainbow Six: Vegas 2, when Big Bad Gabriel Nowak taunts you about Joanna being shot.
Gabe: What do you get when you cross a bullet and a pretty little intelligence officer?
Bishop: Fuck you.
In Resident Evil 5 Chris Redfield has a pretty good one towards the end, when forcing an overdose serum of onto Wesker: "I've had enough... of your ''BULLSHIT!!''"
In Devil May Cry 4, when fighting Sanctus one of the things Nero will say when using the Devil Bringer is "I'm not interested in your bullshit!", with a punch to the face for effect.
One of the things Nero says when doing a D Td Buster on an Alto Angelo sounds a lot like "fuck you!", but this is somewhat debateable since it's not as easy to make out as the above one.
In Baten Kaitos Origins, Sagi, normally a Nice Guy, will drop these whenever he gets really pissed off.
Go to hell, you son of a bitch!
Touhou 8: Imperishable Night, stage 4 with Marisa/Alice. Due to a bad misunderstanding, best friends Reimu and Marisa wind up having an actually for serious fight*
the source material says they play-fight all the time, but this one was actually serious
, and we know things got real when Marisa tells Reimu:
Marisa: Bitch, get out of the way!
Webcomics
Thisxkcd strip features a textbook F strike at the end.
Instead, Ellen shows us how it's done in this comic.
Bob and George have made a running joke out of this with "Roll says the F word".
In fact, in the commentaries the author invokes the idea behind this trope, and only drops the F-Bomb (uncensored, at least) about once a year, in a dramatically appropriate context. Dave Anez abandoned this rule during the final year-and-a-half of the comic—which indicated/foreboded just how badly the crap was hitting the fan.
And now they have done it a second time, here. Mookie, the author, comments that he didn't want to do it, but considering the character and the situation, it was the only word that would fit.
And the comic's first real F-bomb, here. As the author said, "I make no apologies and neither does [the character]."
Rocky doesn't speak, but he finds other ways to get his point across.
In Erfworld, after being forced to replace all his curses with "boop" the entire time he's been Trapped in Another World, Parson concludes his Screw Destiny speech (and the first book) with a very satisfying "Fuck...You!!"
Throughout its over five-year run, Penny and Aggie has used swearwords sparingly, and has never printed them uncensored. (This was justified in its first two years, at any rate, when the creators were trying to get it syndicated.) However, in early 2010 there were two notable exceptions for dramatic purposes:
The bigoted, mentally disturbed Hubbard-follower Xena uses the N-word uncensored. (This results in her getting knocked unconscious in the very next strip.)
Social outcast Helen's bitter inner monologue, as she runs away, ends with the words "Fuck you, Penny. Fuck you, Belleville. Goodbye." Particularly unexpected as her monologue begins with the milder "Screw you."
A later example occurs when Sara, overwhelmed by the multiple stresses her reality show has placed on her, says "Shit" as she breaks down crying in Rich's arms.
This exchange from 8-Bit Theater is actually the first time in the entire lifespan of the work where the word 'fuck' is actually used without any form of censorship:
In Homestuck many characters rarely swear, however, whenever a server player starts the game for the first time, the first thing they do is usually tear out their client player's toilet, and let loose an "oh fuck". Roseand Jade demonstrate.
This is, of course, forgetting the memorable moment in which Rose lets loose the power of the Thorns Of Ogleoth
"WELCOME TO THE PARTY MOTHERFUCKERS"
And Jade again here, although it's implied she's much less sparing when talking to Karkat...
GG: I SAID PASSWORD FUCKASS!!!!!
GA: Wow
GG: whoops sorry
GG: ive been having too many password arguments with karkat i guess :p
Red vs. Blue would normally not qualify for this, since cursing has almost always been one of the trademarks of the series. However, the last half of season 1 and the first half of season 2 were almost completely clean (Rooster Teeth had been trying to make the series more kid-and-work-safe). When the creators decided to reintroduce profanity into the dialogue, they did it with Caboose's "mental image" of Church, who spouted off more over-the-top vulgarity than had ever been heard on the show up to that point, a pretty major wake-up call to the audience.
The earlier episodes of lonelygirl15 were like this. Bree swears precisely once in the entire series, in "I Probably Shouldn't Post This...", when she is defending the Hymn of One in a heated argument with Daniel: "It's my beliefs! There's a million fucking different religions in the world!"
The LoadingReadyRun video Son of a Bitch tends to leave viewers with the impression that it is a Cluster F-Bomb. This is not actually, true, it's just that few F-bombs in the video are done with such intensity.
Linkara is the king of the Precision F-Strike. Or, in this case, the Precision Funk-And-Wagnall Strike.
Notably, Linkara (who never uses stronger language) actually referred to a character as a twat in his JLA: Act of God review. Also in that review, he uses the word "goddamn," which is all the more appropriate as the comic was partly written as Christian propaganda.
In one crossover review with Bennet The Sage, he had Bennet do the Precision F Strikes for him. Linkara paused when most people would curse, and Bennet said the F-word for him.
And then when he made an appearance in Bennet the Sage's Masterpiece Fanfic Theatre in which he was tied to a chair and forced to listen to his own teenage fanfiction, he WOULD have dropped an f-bomb...if Bennet hadn't conveniently gagged him.
Although, he does say "Son of a bitch!" (his strongest swear, aside from a bad imitation of him by The Nostalgia Critic, who made him say the F word in a faked apology video) when he reaches his breaking point, much to Bennet's amazement.
Cry for Justice had him as close to dropping the f-bomb as he'll probably will ever get: "This is a freakin' joke!!!"
In the bloopers for the Wonder Woman review he swears uncensored.
You know you're in deep shit when GOD swears, as The Nostalgia Critic found out the hard way when he called God benevolent when in fact he was vengeful.
LittleKuriboh's Yu-Gi-Oh! Abridged greatly subverts this, by inserting a beep every time someone swears. Except when Marik does it, then it's "EFF!"
Gentle Giant Odion Ishtar concerning the resurfacing of Yami Marik Melvin:
Odion: Let me put it this way: you guys are all totally f[bleep]ed.
Used spectacularly in Survival of the Fittest. Yes, while most characters swear like sailors, cute, meganekko, sugary sweet Louise "Lulu" Altaire manages to pull this off. When she meets Lenny for the third time, after he has just killed her friends the previous times, this time she's prepared. She's killed people, she has a gun and isn't afraid to use it.
Lulu: See this thing, Lenny? Now you take your fucking hands off your handgun or I'll blow a hole through your head.
While The Angry Video Game Nerd prefers the Cluster F-Bomb, his video on NES Accessories had a rare case of a literal Precision F-Strike. When talking about a headset that fired based on voice, he learns you can say anything and it will work. Leading to...
"FUCK!" *hits duck* "Wow, I just shot down a duck by saying fuck."
Brad Jones in Rock Its Your Decision. He was perfectly willing to let the worst stereotype Christian ever rail against Rock Music (which he quite likes apparently) and he would just laugh. Then he brought up lifestyles of these people. (The following is in Bluevision.) Hinthint, heusedthewordhomosexual.
Matthew Buck swears when it is appropriate, and usually bleeps out the word "f*ck." Except at the end of his famous monologue at the end of "Seven Pounds"
Matt: This movie is literally saying that it's okay to kill yourself as long as you donate your organs. What the fuck kind of message is that?
Extra Credits has gotten worked up over subjects before, but has always kept it's language clean. But Call of Juarez's completely backwards depiction of human trafficking finally warranted a "That is f(bleep)ing disgraceful."
Western Animation
Lois Griffin in Family Guy: "This isn't art! This isn't even entertainment! This... BLOWS!!"
The trope would apply to most of the swears in Family Guy since, despite this being an adult show, swear words are still fairly rare, so when they do swear it tends to stand out a lot.
Brian: Peter, I don't wanna say "I told you so", but....YEEAH! IN YOUR FUCKING FACE FUCKWAD!!
Lisa Simpson swears by far the least number of times of any Simpsons character. She only does so twice: once in "Girls Just Want to Have Sums, where she screams, "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT!" at Milhouse, and once in "The Night of The Dolphin", where she is bit by a dolphin, causing her to yell, "Son of a bitch!"
Marge, in The Movie: "SOMEBODY THROW THE GODDAMN BOMB!"
"AW HELL DIDDLY-DING-DONGCRAP!!!
Butters from South Park doesn't swear often, and thus it has a far greater effect when he does. Note that the fact the rest of the characters swear like crazy doesn't really matter: it's very much to do with the individual.
Comedy Central seems to agree that this is effective, as he was allowed to say "Ah, shit." at the end of "Imaginationland". As we all know from the episode "It Hits The Fan", the network has a history of only allowing them to use that word when the situation calls for it.
Another classic was his cheering "Fuck him up, Wendy!" when Wendy fights Cartman in Breast Cancer Show Ever.
A particularly brilliant one comes at the end of "Christian Rock Hard", when, after being screwed over by Cartman, Butters calmly walks over to him, farts in his face, gives him the finger and says "Fuck you, Eric." He then calmly walks away.
"It Hits The Fan" also spoofed this trope when the use of a single swear word was hyped on a TV show was hyped in the media. The actual sentence came at the end of the fake episode, "Oh, by the way, you got some shit on your face there."
Don't... FUCK... with... Wendy... Testaburger!!!!
This incident from The Movie stands out amongst the Cluster F Bombing: when Cartman learns he's grounded for one week longer than Stan and Kyle for watching the Terrence and Phillip movie against their parents' strict orders not to, he can only say, "That's fucking bullshit." This carries enough weight to shock Kyle's mom further.
Similar to the South Park example, most of the cast of Drawn Together swear like sailors. Princess Clara, on the other hand, uses profanity very sparingly, so when she drops an F-bomb, you notice it.
Used in Hey Arnold! when Helga (not the most delicate flower to begin with) is seemingly freed from her obsession with Arnold and reads her own love journal entries: "What. Is. This. Crap?!"
In Dexter'sLaboratory, the gym teacher says the exact same thing in reaction to Dexter's excuse note.
The (G-rated) animation The Secret of NIMH contains a single, clear "Damn!" spoken by the character Justin. Being in the Animation Age Ghetto, it carries a lot of impact.
The Donkey Kong Country cartoon had a couple. One episode has Cranky exclaim "What kind of CRAP is that!?" after he wakes up from a sleeping potion and is prompted by Bluster to say the lines for his barrel factory's commercial (It Makes Sense in Context), and also had K. Rool says "It's bad enough I can't get "Gator Wrestling", but I also have to listen to this blathering butt-head baboon as well!" after watching another commercial. Another episode had Kaptain Skurvy say "Me great-great-grandpappy Skurvy, may he rot in Hell, loved a good joke!" ("in Hell" is replaced by a laugh in the American version, but the closed captioning still has the original line).
In Superman/Batman: Public Enemies, after being betrayed by Amanda Waller, Lex Luthor simply turns to face her and says "Bitch." It is rated PG-13, but the fact that the line is spoken by Clancy Brown after years of him playing Mr. Krabs on Spongebob makes it more surprising, awesome and funny.
Batman: You think you know everything about me, don't you?
Alfred: I diapered your bottom. I bloody well ought to... sir.
There's a classic "blooper" clip of Porky Pig (presumably a studio gag reel or something like that) smacking his thumb with a hammer while pounding a nail, and muttering, "Son of bi-bi-bi, son of a bi-bi-bi, son of a bi-bi-bi-Gun!" He then turns to the camera and adds, "Ha-ha-ha, you thought I was gonna say s-son of a Bitch, didn't you?"
Every time that Total Drama Island unleashes something bleeped in-show, it's always either really awesome or really hilarious.
DJ and his "Oh, shit" when facing the first challenge.
Lindsay insulting Heather with a really long list of (bleeped) insults (complete with middle finger) after finding out how much she's used her the entire season.
Izzy and her Shout Out to Christian Bale in the Celebrity Manhunt special while on a movie set.
Alejandro in the first episode of World Tour, when he finds out how useless his team is. Bonus points for putting on a good face until he gets to the confessional, as well as for the Gratuitous Spanish.
The show also gets away with several uncensored Curse Cut Shorts.
Cobra Commander: [addressing his Mooks] There will be no moves to take over my command. There will be no mistakes. THERE WILL BE NONE OF YOUR CRAP! NONE OF IT!!!
From the Danger Mouse episode "The Wild Wild Goose Chase":
Narrator: On and on they trod though the white sands in the noonday sun and the merciless hell of a waterless desert.
DM: You know, Penfold....after trodding on and on through the white sands in the noonday sun and the merciless hell of a waterless desert, I don't quite feel so lucky anymore.
In Aqua Teen Hunger Force, from the end of an episode where Frylock buys a widescreen plasma TV.
Meatwad: I thought you said television was bad.
Frylock: It is. But we f—king need it.
The Venture Brothers: Dean Venture gets one in the last line of the fourth season. "You know what I think? Fuck you!"
Zigzagged in the I Am Weasel episode "A Tree Story," where talking trees have a town hall meeting about being mercilessly and needlessly chopped down for sundry uses by mankind:
Head Tree: The floor recognizes the birch.
Birch: Um, my boy has something he'd like to say.
Head Tree: Okay, the floor recognizes the son of a birch.
The Hungarian dub of King of the Hill has such a fondness of using a rich, if not varied collection of uncensored swear words, none would seem to particularly stand out from the rest, but the way the voice actors stress each of them, this trope can easily be applied.
In 1986, the German Green Party member Joschka Fischer said to the president of the Bundestag (the German parliament) the probably most famous line of German post-war politics,
With all respect, Mr. President, you're an asshole!
Effective whenever Stephen Fry swears. Such as this from Stephen Fry's Guilty Pleasures: 'The sort of twee person who thinks swearing is in any way a sign of a lack of education or a lack of verbal interest is just a fucking lunatic'.
A particularly moving example came from his appearance on The BBC's celebrity genealogy show Who Do You Think You Are, in which he used it when discussing some of his ancestors who died at Auschwitz. Also a Precision F-Strike on the part of The BBC themselves, who almost never (intentionally) broadcast the word uncensored before the watershed.
In fact, Who Do You Think You Are has always been a post-watershed show, though its content doesn't usually require it to be.
In TV recordings, Fry uses the trick of swearing to render a piece of footage unbroadcastable when he has said something he would rather not be used in a final edit: "Oh no, we can't use that now I've said 'cunt'". He does this partly for the benefit of the audience, who enjoy being treated to his delightful swearing.
Also effective in Moab Is My Washpot, his memoir, when he is lamenting his lack of musical talent. After talking about how beautiful music is and everything it does for the human spirit: "AND I CAN'T FUCKING DO IT."
Also from Moab Is My Washpot, Fry's meditation on boys who were good at sport at his boarding school:
"Oh, there was always a Jamie, a good-lad-Jamie, a neat, nippy, darty, agile scrum-halfy little Jamie. Jamie could swarm up ropes like an Arthur Ransom hero, he could fly up window frames, leap vaulting horses, flip elegant underwater turns at the end of each lap of the pool, somersault backwards and forwards off the trapeze and spring back up with his neat little buttocks twinkling and winking with fitness and firmness and cute little Jamieness. Cunt."
In a related note to the Stephen Fry example above: John Cleese (of Monty Python / Fawlty Towers fame) once described this trope in an interview, by explaining that the art of making swear words funny is to avoid using them... until the exact moment in the script when it will be most effective. A comedy with gratuitous swearing ends up desensitising the audience to the words in question, meaning they lose a lot of their amusement. But if you go for fifty minutes without a single swear word, then suddenly have a character say 'shit', the swear word becomes instantly more amusing, because the audience has been conditioned not to expect it up to that point.
The eulogy that Cleese delivered for Graham Chapman is a wonderful example of this. The best quote: "Alright, Cleese, you're very proud of being the first person to ever say 'shit' on British television. If this service is really for me, just for starters, I want you to be the first person ever at a British memorial service to say 'fuck'!" The audience, which included the rest of the Pythons, was suitably delighted. The service ended with a rousing chorus of "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life". Video here.
During the recording of Queen's "The Show Must Go On", Brian May was concerned that due to Freddie Mercury's condition and deteriorating health, he wouldn't be physically able to handle the highly demanding vocals required. Bear in mind at the time Freddie couldn't even physically stand up by himself. Freddie's response was to down a measure of vodka and proclaim "I'll fucking do it, darling!" - he nailed the vocals in one take, making it double as both a Crowning Moment of AwesomeandCrowning Music of Awesome.
Chase Utley was handed the microphone at the 2008 Philadelphia Phillies World Championship parade. He apparently didn't know what to say besides "World Champions!". He followed up with "World Fucking Champions!".... the crowd went absolutely wild. Especially effective as the parade was being broadcast live on several major radio and TV stations (which as a rule do not broadcast the F-word).
Chase apparently has difficulty with this word and microphones. In an earlier incident, from the 2008 MLB Home Run Derby at Yankee Stadium, the crowd, mostly New Yorkers and as a result likely heavily peppered with Mets fans, began booing Utley as he ran onto the field to take part in the event. He took one look at the crowd, promptly forgot that he was wearing a microphone for ESPN, and audibly muttered "Boo? Fuck you!"
Both of these Precision F Strikes are considered Crowning Moments of Awesome among Phillies fans. (On a slightly related note, Chase Utley himself is considered a walking Crowning Moment of Awesome.)
Used by religious leader Tony Campolo.
"I have three things to say today. First, while you were sleeping last night, 30,000 kids died of starvation or diseases caused by malnutrition. Second, most of you don't give a shit. What's worse is that you're more upset about the fact that I said shit than the fact that 30,000 kids died last night."
Inversion: One reason drill instructors swear at their troops every sentence so that in combat the lack of swearing emphasises the urgency of their orders.
Billy Mays during an outtake of his Kaboom commercial: "You shittin' me?"
It has been found that (mild and frugal) swearing improves the perceived credibility of an argument.
Or as a teaching tool to improve retention of an especially important point. Mainly used at the university/college level for obvious reasons.
Used by Ron White in his act when discussing how he got kicked out of the debate team
Ron: I got kicked off the high school debate team for saying, "Yeah? Well, fuck you!". The other guy was speechless. I thought I had won!
British comedian Frank Skinner experimented with this trope while on tour, first by removing all swearing from his act and then by reintroducing only the most significant swearwords. He later started promoting the buzzword Intelligent Swearing.
Used hilariously by Bill Cosby, whose comedy has always been notoriously clean, in a stand-up act about drugs:
Bill: "So I ask this guy, 'What is it about cocaine that makes it so wonderful?' And he said, 'Well, it intensifies your personality.' And I said, 'Yes, but what if you're an asshole?'"
Paul Gogarty: With all due respect and in the most unparliamentary language, Fuck YOU, Deputy Stagg! FUCK YOU! I now apologize for-
Ceann Comhairle: Deputy Gogarty, that is most unparliamentary language.
Paul Gogarty: It is most unparliamentary language and I now withdraw it and apologize for it.
Barack Obama, on Kanye West's infamous MTV Video Music Awards interruption: "He's a jackass." The language may be tame compared to the rest of the examples here, but it's still harsher language than expected of the president.
Biden, however, DID use the f word, for emphasis mainly, after against all odds the Health Care Bill was successfully passed.
He probably thought that the microphones couldn't hear him at the time.
Obama's also looking for an ass to kick regarding that puddle of oil in the Gulf. His statements in the interview were immediately schmoyohoified.
When he hit his groin on a first-down pole during a Minnesota-Northwestern football game, Simoni Lawrence got up next to the microphone and said: "Muthafucka hit mah pay-ness!"
Michael Jackson rarely cursed in public; but when a news photographer shoved one of his fans to the ground in an effort to get closer to the singer, Michael snapped at him, "No, no, don't you touch my fans! Fuck you!"
Tom Baker: "Yeah, you never fucking know the answer when it's important."
The "Shit Heard Round The World", as uttered by then-President Bush in conversation with then-P.M. Tony Blair. Neither man apparently noticed that they were on a live mic at the time.
In a celebrity roast of Tom Hanks, the host spoke of how he'd watched Hanks' rising success as a comedy actor, then as a serious lead, and finally as the star of new classics like Saving Private Ryan. He was modest about his own jealousy over Hanks' initial successes, but when he spoke of seeing his performance in this last film, his only possible reaction was an envious "Motherfucker!"
Some self-defense training courses recommend the strategic use of this trope to present an aggressive front to a potential attacker, thereby making yourself seem less like an easy target.
Not just to an attacker, but to themselves. Self-defense teachers often say that the hardest thing to do is to convince women that it's OK to hit someone (most are afraid to, believing that it's not polite or ladylike.) By screaming an F-Bomb at the attacker, they're saying to themselves, "Screw ladylike, I need to protect myself by any means necessary."
In 1965, Lyndon Johnson actually said to the Greek ambassador Alexander Matsas (regarding Cyprus as well as Greece), "Fuck your parliament and your constitution". Very effective by the fact that movies did not even say the f-word back then.
More mild than most, but still powerful: after the successful detonation of an atomic bomb at Trinity, site director Kenneth Bainbridge stated "Now we are all sons of bitches."
"We put poison in our air and water to weed out the weak! We detonate fission bombs in our only biosphere!We nailed our god to a STICK! Don't fuck with the human race!" ([[Imageboards 4Chan]] quote)
Before a speech during a 2000 campaign stop, an open mic caught George W. Bush calling New York Times reporter Adam Clymer "a major league asshole".
Christopher Hitchens may be the world master of this art. Skip just before the end of this video to see an oft used example.
After U2 won a Golden Globe, Bono's acceptance speech began with "This is fucking brilliant!"
Italian comedian, Roberto Benigni (most famous for his Tear Jerker movie Life is Beautiful) is known for his mix of classy comedy and somewhat politically incorrect gags. Still, this hammyBunny-Ears Lawyer almost never swears. Lately, during his latest appearance in a stand-up comedy act, he broke his own rule in one of the last lines of his takethat-tastic song aimed at Silvio Berlusconi:
Richard Dawkins, when accused during a science vs. religion debate of being ineffective in getting his message out (specifically, not trying hard enough to be persuasive), decided to quote the unofficial philosphy of New Scientist magazine: "Science is interesting. And if you don't agree you can fuck off."
Martin Freeman, at a press conference to introduce the cast of The Hobbit, when asked if it was "the role of a lifetime" tried to give an even-handed response: "I've always tried not to be overwhelmed by size. I don't think it's helpful and I don't think it's accurate... Just because something is big that means it's better, y'know? I've never thought that. There's no denying however I'm in The fucking Hobbit, playing the fucking hobbit." It's impossible to adequately describe the perfectly deadpan way he said this, but it's Martin Freeman, so it goes without saying really.
Fuck you, I've won a BAFTA!
Steven Erikson, author of The Malazan Bookofthe Fallen, used it perfectly in his response to Endgame by Derrick Jensen. He swears about three times, buch each time it conveys exactly what could not be conveyed in any other words. He truly uses fuck as a 'sentence enhancer'.
Melissa Leo during her Oscar acceptance speech: "When I watched Kate two years ago, it looked so fucking easy!" She later apologized, saying it wasn't the right venue for such an outburst.
Republican New York State Senator Roy McDonald, on crossing party lines in support of gay marriage:
“You get to the point where you evolve in your life where everything isn't black and white, good and bad, and you try to do the right thing. You might not like that. You might be very cynical about that. Well, fuck it, I don't care what you think. I'm trying to do the right thing. I'm tired of Republican-Democrat politics. They can take the job and shove it. I come from a blue-collar background. I'm trying to do the right thing, and that's where I'm going with this.”
The normally calm and collected Fox News anchor Shep Smith during a webcast discussing the subject of torture:
"We- are- America! I don't give a rat's ass if it helps! We are America! We do not FUCKING TORTURE!"
Emma Watson got her own when she called Hollywood "bitchy" when asked what she thought of a possible future Hollywood career. If she's asked why Hollywood seems to hate her pixie-cut, she'll probably use colorful language again.
Ray Romano, long known for being the wishy-washy husband on Everybody Loves Raymond, performed stand-up comedy at Carnegie Hall. He began as follows.
"Excuse me for a moment, ladies and gentlemen...Carnegie F<bleep>ing Hall. <wild applause> The only profanity of the night."
There's a great story about Ethel Merman, who, according to Stephen Sondheim, "had the vocabulary of a truck driver." She was working with the abovementioned Loretta Young, who insisted that Ethel use the Swear Jar. After becoming more and more frustrated with this, Ethel turned to her, placed a hundred-dollar bill in the jar, and said," Loretta, here's a hundred dollars and go fuck yourself."
(Note that this is immediately Mulroney said "good evening" even to his political opponents, so as to emphasize that his worst indignation was reserved for Newman's morally questionable actions at the time.
In This Wiki, tropers will often pothole any usage of the word "fuck" to this page.
In 2004, during the holiday season, CBS had a camera at the Jacksonville-Cleveland football game trained on a crowd which included a white-bearded man who could easily pass as Santa Claus. He bore a shirt which clearly read "Your ass ain't getting shit for Christmas!"
This example happens alot in sports such as football and Nascar where the event is live so they are not able to censor it These usually resulted in being fined.
An NFL player was fined when he told a fan who blamed him for losing the game to fuck off.
A NASCAR driver was fined and lost points when he called another driver who wrecked him a piece of shit.
Another sports example is Didier Drogba's infamous outburst after Chelsea's UEFA Champions League semi-final loss to Barcelona.
Drogba: "Hey, it's a disgrace. It's a disgrace. It's a fucking disgrace."
