History Main / DidNotDoTheBloodyResearch

** Inversely, in South Africa the word "Coloured" refers to people of multiracial ancestry, who under apartheid made up a legal category separate from Black, White, and Asian South Africans. The Coloured label included children of interracial couples (which were illegal under apartheid, hence the title of Creator/TrevorNoah's memoir ''Born a Crime''), people whose parents were both descended from mixed-race communities dating back centuries, and [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khoisan Khoisan]] peoples who look visually distinct from the Bantu-speaking peoples who made up South Africa's Black category. Even decades after apartheid, "Coloured" remains the accepted term. Meanwhile in the UsefulNotes/UnitedStates, "colored" (spelled without a U in American English) was used interchangeably with "Black," as the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-drop_rule one-drop rule]] meant that any ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa made you Black. In the US, calling someone "coloured" would be both antiquated and insulting. Strangely enough, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAACP one of the US's most prominent Black activist organizations]] is still called the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, though these days it's usually referred to by the acronym NAACP. Also strangely, the phrase "people of color" is widely accepted in the States, albeit as a catch-all for any non-white groups and not solely for Black people.

* In 2018, Heinz released a new condiment for its line which was a combination of mayonnaise and ketchup. They called it Mayochup... which caused some hilarity among Cree-speaking people, since the phrase translates to "shit-face" in Cree.

* In Britain and Australia, the term "knackers" generally refers to testicles, similar to bollocks. "Knackered" also means exhausted. In Ireland, it's an ethnic slur referring to Irish Travellers, a traditionally itinerant minority group

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* Music/WeirdAlYankovic caused a minor controversy over the word "spastic" being used in [[Music/MandatoryFun "Word Crimes".]] He apologized on Twitter, saying he didn't know that it was an offensive slur.

* ''VideoGame/{{Pikmin}}'': The Australian versions of the New Play Control games change the name of the Wollywog, Yellow Wollywog, and Wogpole to Wollyhop, Yellow Wollyhop, and Wolpole, respectively. The original name is derived from "polliwog", an American slang word for frogs, but in Australia "wog" is a slur for Mediterranean people, and the word "wollywog" is evocative of "Gollywog", which is an offensive caricature of black people.

** A lot of English speakers have heard the expression "tu madre" and know it's an insult, (your mother) but don't realize how ''extremely'' rude it is in some Spanish speaking countries, particularly Mexico where it's definitely fighting words. It's to the point where people won't even say it in obviously polite and literal contexts (people usually say "mamá" to refer to someone's mother). Even the "shave and a haircut" rhythm is offensive because it stands for an even ruder extended version of this insult.

* "Bastard" is typically viewed as a fairly mild insult in the US, about as inoffensive as you can get without dipping into GoshDangItToHeck. In the UK, it's considered profane enough that it's usually bleeped in TV programs airing before the watershed.

* Rareware inverted this trope with its next game ''VideoGame/DonkeyKong64'', using the line "One hell of a guy" in the [[SoBadItsGood infamous DK Rap]], which naturally had to be censored when the song reappeared in ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros''.

** ''Mario Party 8'' has Kamek drop the word "spastic" - which happens to be an extremely vulgar way of insulting someone with cerebral palsy, comparable to 'retard'. The game had to be ''recalled'' in the U.K. when people found out, and was swiftly replaced with an edited version where Kamek says "erratic" instead.

** Similarly, the American localization of the first ''VideoGame/WarioWare'' game named 9-Volt's pet "Shag", a shortened version of his Japanese name, Shaggy. In the European version, this was changed to "Fronk", and starting with ''Touched!'' this is what's used in the American localization as well.

* On the flip-side, blasphemous curse words like "damn" or "hell" are barely offensive anymore in the UK and Australia, being largely secular countries, and can be used freely even in children's media without causing a major stink. In the US and Canada, they're not ''bad'' per se, but you would never get away with putting them in a kids' show and they almost always result in a "mild language" tag.

* A department store in Osaka, Japan once put [[http://www.japansubculture.com/its-no-ordinary-sale-its-a-fuckin-sale/ "FUCKIN' SALE"]] signs all over the store.

* "Bugger" has very different meanings in the U.S. in the UK that account for its different levels of offensiveness. In the U.S., the word "bugger" is derived from the slang term "to bug," meaning "to annoy." Calling someone or something a "bugger" is to call them annoying. It can also be used as a slang term for vermin. In the UK, "bugger" means "to have anal sex with," and is thus considered a quite rude word. In both the UK and Australia it can also have two other meanings: You can refer to someone or something as a "bugger" just 'because' ("He's a funny bugger"), or an alternative to "piss" in the phrase "Piss off!" (so, obviously, "Bugger off!")

** It's also a case of the "euphemism treadmill" turning. "Mentally retarded" was originally promoted to replace terms like "idiot", "imbecile", and "moron", which historically referred to varying levels of intellectual disability (with "idiot" denoting an IQ no higher than 25, "imbecile" denoting an IQ between 26 and 50, and "moron" denoting an IQ between 51 and 70). These terms all got phased out of medical jargon in the mid-twentieth century after acquiring derogatory connotations. In turn, "retarded" itself has acquired derogatory connotations and largely been phased out of medical jargon in favour of alternatives like "intellectually disabled". Nowadays, "idiot", "imbecile", and "moron" are generally considered ''less'' offensive than the R word. None of these terms tend to be used in a ''clinical'' sense anymore, but "retarded" and "retard" are still used as ''colloquial'' slurs against disabled people. Words like "idiot" are considered less offensive because they've fallen into more general usage to describe anything perceived as stupid: they're more often than not used ''outside'' the context of disability, and fewer people remember when they ''were'' more commonly associated with disability. In more recent years, the word "slow" replaced "retard", though this word itself is becoming offensive when used in this context, having been replaced with "special", which is also starting to head that way.

* In Germany and the Netherlands, English curse words are used quite often and are usually considered to be less offensive than the German equivalent, to the point where Angela Merkel (former leader of Germany, in case you don't know) said "shitstorm" during a speech to a crowded room and no one reacted. So any German who visits the US should remember not to say shit or fuck as they're used to doing. Equally, whenever American media arrive in Germany or the Netherlands and the regarding curse word gets bleeped out, it's often is met with confusion.

*** A similar dichotomy occurs between High and Low German. The Low German word "Schiet" (pronounced "sheet") is etymologically the equivalent of High German "Scheiße", but also means "dirt" or "mud" (such as children will use in their games), and "Schieter" and "Schietbüdel" ("Büdel" means "bag") can be used as terms of affection. North Germans speaking High German will sometimes use "Schiet" as a euphemism for "Scheiße." (On a related note, cf. Low German "Mo(o)rs", literarily "arse", but used almost only affectionally. Even in the Low German equivalent to the Götz of Berlichingen words, "Klei mi am Mors!", it's not much of a profanity. [[SchmuckBait OK, now go try it with "Arsch" and compare reactions...]]).

* This trope may even strike within a single country. In the Bavarian dialect, you can say "Fotzn" to mean the mouth (it's the Bavarian equivalent of "gob" or "pie hole" -- a bit rude, but not profanity). In the rest of Germany, the word "Fotz''e''" means...[[CountryMatters another orifice]] entirely. Etymologically, both derive from a word meaning "bag".
** In the Rhineland, the related word "Futt" can mean "behind" and "Futtloch" ("Loch" = "hole") means "anus".
** An old German way to say the N-word was to call a black person "Mohr" (analogous with "Moor"). While many younger people are not aware of this, older people are, and therefore find it disturbing that chocolate products often have the word in their name (e.g. "Mohrenkopf" for a chocolate-covered biscuit, meaning "A black person's head"). The biggest offender was the chocolate brand "Sarotti" which regularly used the catchphrase "Die Schokolade mit dem Sarotti-Mohr" aka "The chocolate with the Sarotti Nigger."
* Whenever foreigners use German cussing, they tend to use "Scheiße" (which means "shit"). It is a quite strong curse word in German, equivalent to "fuck" (which is ironically a quite gentle curse in Germany in direct comparison to "Scheiße").

* Lampshaded in one ''ComicBook/TheSimpsons'' comic, Bart and Lisa end up staying with pseudo-South American freedom fighters. When Bart utters his CatchPhrase "Ay Caramba!", he is immediately beaten down by a woman for using dirty language in front of her child.

* The ''Film/HarryPotter'' film series, written for the screen by an American, Creator/SteveKloves, gives Ron a CatchPhrase: "Bloody hell!" Not unlikely for an 11-year-old British boy to say, but probably not in front of a teacher: In the first film, Ron says it to [=McGonagall=]'s face for her 'bloody brilliant' transformation from a cat. Likely about half of British teachers would tell an 11-year-old to mind their language, but it wouldn't lead to any more punishment than that.

* Similarly, Finland in ''Webcomic/ScandinaviaAndTheWorld'' has "perkele" as his CatchPhrase (if not only word), which is much the same thing.

** An old German way to say the N-word was to call a black person "Mohr" (analogous with "Moor"). While many younger people are not aware of this, older people are, and therefore find it disturbing that chocolate products often have the word in their name (e.g. "Mohrenkopf" for a chocolate-covered biscuit, meaning "A black person's head"). The biggest offender was the chocolate brand "Sarotti" which regularly used the CatchPhrase "Die Schokolade mit dem Sarotti-Mohr" aka "The chocolate with the Sarotti Nigger."

Sometimes a writer will use "international" slang to make a character seem saltier and "regional" or make themselves seem more in touch with a foreign work (frequently American versus British usage of a word). Sometimes, however, an expression is still considered vulgar elsewhere. When words like "bollocks" or "wanker" appear in, say, an American work that is otherwise PG, the words create [[ValuesDissonance dissonance]] in places that are more familiar with them.

This trope covers any confusion or [[PlayedForLaughs hilarity]] arising from foreign swear words, not just in the U.S.. Since international expletives are often "G-rated" on American TV, "arse" and "shite" can be family-friendly ways of getting "ass" and "shit" [[GettingCrapPastTheRadar past the censors]]. In Britain, "ass" is the American spelling of "arse"[[note]]"Ass" (pronounced as written with a short "a") is also a term for a donkey [[/note]] - one may write "ass" to emphasize that the speaker is American rather than English. Gestures may be similarly misunderstood, such as the two-finger V-sign to signal "victory" or in the U.S. the hippy sign "peace", which is an insult in Greece and, if the hand is turned around, the equivalent to (or worse than) giving the finger in some countries such as the U.K..

See also SeparatedByACommonLanguage, BilingualBonus, HaveAGayOldTime, ValuesDissonance, and CountryMatters. See also MoreInsultingThanIntended. Can result in YeOldeButcheredeEnglishe. Naturally, if the curse is used in the proper context, then any associated profanity trope--like PrecisionFStrike, AtomicFBomb, or ClusterFBomb--can apply.

Not to be confused with ABNegative, OverdrawnAtTheBloodBank, ABloodyMess, or [[BloodyTropes any of a number of tropes that are literally about blood]]. If you were looking for in-universe cases where it's obvious someone didn't do research that is unrelated to swear words, you're looking for InUniverseFactoidFailure.

* Most younger Asians know the meaning of English swear words (more or less), but find them cute or funny because, as [[ForeignCussWord foreign words]], they don't have the same emotional impact.[[note]]This applies even [[UsefulNotes/ChineseDialectsAndAccents between Chinese varities]]: 屌 means "fuck" in Cantonese, but younger Mandarin speakers may use it like "rad" or "awesome".[[/note]] Similarly, many Japanese people, particularly young ones, are aware from movies that the middle finger gesture is rude in the United States - they just don't realize ''how'' rude, and will happily throw it around as if it were just a wacky gesture of mild defiance - which can get them in trouble if they try it when visiting the US. Manga and anime characters are sometimes drawn making the gesture as well, with the same not-meant-to-be-offensive context, which can be very jarring for American manga readers who aren't used to that kind of thing.

** More generally, Quebec profanity like "crisse", "osti" or "tabarnak" is heavily church-based (as opposed to France where it focuses more heavily on prostitution, incest and defecation) and French people tend to think it sounds absolutely adorable. As a result they sometimes grossly overuse it.

* In most of the Anglophone world, the word "root" can mean "origin" or "typically-underground part of a plant" if used as a noun, or "to support/to cheer for" if used as a verb. But in Australian slang, "root" can be somewhat offensive, depending on its context: aside from its usual uses as a noun, it can also be a verb roughly meaning "to perform a sex act", which discourages people from [[AccidentalInnuendo using it as a verb in nonsexual contexts]]. It's generally considered vulgar, but not actually swearing as such.

* In an accidental inversion of this trope, English-language works of fiction will often have a stereotypical French-speaking character shout ''"Zut alors!"'' as if it's equivalent to a PrecisionFStrike. To French speakers, this is very mild language, and roughly translates into English as "Damn!"

* An example went viral when several Japanese V-Tubers played ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoV''; During the scene where Lamar roasts Franklin's haircut, the famous singsong "''Niggaaaa....''" at the end of the roast is translated as "you know...?" in the Japanese subtitles, ostensibly as an attempt to make the conversation understandable for Japanese players and preserve Lamar's personality without being unduly vulgar. Unfortunately, several V-tubers who witnessed this scene took the "N-word" to simply mean a colorful expression and as such amusedly repeated the word in their own impression of Lamar. Thankfully, English-speaking viewers quickly stepped in to explain the ramifications of the term to prevent misunderstanding.

* In America, it's an eraser. In Britain, it is often called a rubber. Given rubber is also American slang for condom, asking to borrow a rubber can earn you weird looks in public.

* Lenny Bruce used the word "shmok" in his stand-up act as a way of getting a very bad (albeit Yiddish) word past the censors. As a result, a generation of gentile Americans came away thinking it was just a mild insult, while the same generation of Jews remembers getting punished severely for using the word as children. Jews still squirm when the word is used really egregiously, as when it was all over marquees in "Dinner for Schmucks."

** Inversely, in South Africa the word "Coloured" refers to people of multiracial ancestry, who under apartheid made up a legal category separate from Black, White, and Asian South Africans. The Coloured label included children of interracial couples (which were illegal under apartheid, hence the title of Creator/TrevorNoah's memoir ''Born a Crime''), people whose parents were both descended from mixed-race communities dating back centuries, and [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khoisan Khoisan]] peoples who look visually distinct from the Bantu-speaking peoples who made up South Africa's Black category. Even decades after apartheid, "Coloured" remains the accepted term. Meanwhile in the UsefulNotes/UnitedStates, "colored" (spelled without a U in American English) was used interchangeably with "Black," as the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-drop_rule one-drop rule]] meant that any ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa made you Black. In contrast with South Africa, the US considers the word "colored" antiquated and derogatory when used in a racial context, due to its association with [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_segregation_in_the_United_States America's own history of racist segregation]]. Strangely enough, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAACP one of the US's most prominent Black activist organizations]] is still called the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, though unsurprisingly it's better known by the acronym NAACP nowadays. Also strangely, the phrase "people of color" is widely accepted in the States, albeit as a catch-all for any non-white groups and not solely for Black people.

** Spike is just wonderful for this. He at one point dismisses Zander as a "bloody poof." Not only does Spike pronounce the word wrong (rhyming it with “tooth” as opposed to “woof”) but in the U.K., the word is only slightly more acceptable than "faggot" and was probably not intended to be so harsh.

* ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'':
** From the mouth of James in ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'': "That's why she doesn't know a bloody thing about us, there's no Sinnoh Team Rocket branch!"
** In a non-Anglophonic variant, the Japanese Lt. Surge (who is supposed to be American) exclaims in an early episode, "God damn!" He also does this in the manga ''Manga/PokemonZensho''. Randomly cussing for no reason at all is a common Japanese stereotype of Americans, though almost exclusively played for laughs.
** In episode 115 of ''Sun and Moon'', there is a rap sequence. In the Japanese version of the rap, a Team Skull grunt says (in English) "Let's get high". This is an unusual sentence that likely wasn't meant to allude to drugs. Ths English dub changed it to "Hey, hi, ho" (which rhymes with the next line "Yay, Guzma, yo!").

* In the Japanese version of ''Anime/SonicX'', Episode 2 has Sonic say [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXxIVb4Pixk "Shit!"]] in [[GratuitousEnglish English]]. Right in front of [[KidAppealCharacter Cream]], too. The voice actor, Creator/JunichiKanemaru, later [[https://twitter.com/junichisonic/status/1126755911979036675 admitted in a tweet]] that [[ThrowItIn he ad-libbed the line]] without realizing it's inappropriate for a children's show, assuming it was the English equivalent of the Japanese "kuso" (which is ''similar'' to "shit", in that it's an expression of frustration or dismay that doubles as a term for excrement, but is much more mild and publicly acceptable).

* ''VisualNovel/TheGreatAceAttorney: Adventures'' has a large portion of its plot set in the Great British Empire, it was almost inevitable for the FanTranslation to run into this. At one point in Episode Three, a Juror loudly exclaims '''"BOLLOCKS!"'''.[[note]]Meaning "testicles", for those not in the know.[[/note]] Quite something for a series whose official translations use GoshdangItToHeck!

* Lizzie in ''WesternAnimation/{{Cars}}'' refers to her husband as a 'persistent little bugger'.

* Disney's Live-Action/CGI remake of ''Film/Pinocchio2022Disney'' has, at one point during Pinocchio’s escape from Pleasure Island, the coachman using the word “Bollocks”. As this word is considered significantly more offensive in the UK than in the USA (generally used as interchangeable with “Crap” in the USA, while more on par with “Bullshit” in the UK) a number of British parents were not amused at hearing this word in a children's movie.

* Whoever decided that "wank" would be a good onomatopoeia for ''ComicBook/CaptainAmerica'''s [[http://www.superdickery.com/captain-america-i-command-you-to-wank/ shield hitting a villain in the face]] was clearly unaware of the word's [[ADateWithRosiePalms meaning]] in British/Australian/New Zealand slang. Or was 100% aware of it and having a laugh. And, because of the placement of the speech bubble, it looks like "I command you to--WANK!"

** There's a truly startling moment in ''Series/{{Angel}}'' where Spike instructs Angel to "wank off", the writer apparently believing this is analogous to "piss off". [[ADateWithRosiePalms It really isn't]], and the British phrase would be more likely to be "wank yourself off".

* To bum is an odd one. In the UK it means to borrow ("bum a fag" means to take a cigarette in the UK, and is a very common phrase), as well as to annoy. In the US it can mean to beg or borrow, but mostly is a term for homeless people, however, in some parts of the US, it is used to mean sodomize (in the UK, you can use it to mean something more like humping, specifically against someone's backside). So a Brit asking for a cigarette could seem to some Americans like they want anal intercourse with a gay man.

** Inversely, in South Africa the word "Coloured" refers to people of multiracial ancestry, who under apartheid made up a legal category separate from Black, White, and Asian South Africans. The Coloured label included children of interracial couples (which were illegal under apartheid, hence the title of Creator/TrevorNoah's memoir ''Born a Crime''), people whose parents were both descended from mixed-race communities dating back centuries, and [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khoisan Khoisan]] peoples who look visually distinct from the Bantu-speaking peoples who made up South Africa's Black category. Even decades after apartheid, "Coloured" remains the accepted term. Meanwhile in the UsefulNotes/UnitedStates, "colored" (spelled without a U in American English) was used interchangeably with "Black," as the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-drop_rule one-drop rule]] meant that any ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa made you Black. In contrast with South Africa, the US considers the word "colored" antiquated and derogatory when used in a racial context, due to its association with [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_segregation_in_the_United_States America's own history of racist segregation]]. Strangely enough, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAACP one of the US's most prominent Black activist organizations]] is still called the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, though unsurprisingly it's better known by the acronym NAACP nowadays.

This trope covers any confusion or [[HilarityEnsues hilarity]] arising from foreign swear words, not just in the U.S.. Since international expletives are often "G-rated" on American TV, "arse" and "shite" can be family-friendly ways of getting "ass" and "shit" [[GettingCrapPastTheRadar past the censors]]. In Britain, "ass" is the American spelling of "arse"[[note]]"Ass" (pronounced as written with a short "a") is also a term for a donkey [[/note]] - one may write "ass" to emphasize that the speaker is American rather than English. Gestures may be similarly misunderstood, such as the two-finger V-sign to signal "victory" or in the U.S. the hippy sign "peace", which is an insult in Greece and, if the hand is turned around, the equivalent to (or worse than) giving the finger in some countries such as the U.K..

* Because the profanity of the word "bloody" in the UK, the videogame ''Bloody Wolf'' was retitled ''Battle Rangers'' in Europe. However, the saga ''VideoGame/BloodyRoar'' retained that title there.

* Because the profanity of the word "bloody" in the UK, the videogame Bloody Wolf was retitled Battle Rangers in Europe. However, the saga ''VideoGame/BloodyRoar'' retained that title there.

* Because the profanity of the word "bloody" in the UK, the videogame Bloody Wolf was retitled Battle Rangers in Europe. However, the saga BloodyRoar retained that title there.