History Main / DidNotDoTheBloodyResearch

** This popped up in a summit between Spain and Argentina, where some Spanish politician used the word "coger." While in Spain, the Caribbean and some parts of South America it means just to "take" or "pick", in Argentina, Mexico and Venezuela it's [[ClusterFBomb something entirely different]].

** However, the term Fan Wank often has a more literal meaning when used by Brits. In the ''Series/DoctorWho'' fandom, for instance, FanWank is used to mean "Continuity references put in the script to get the fans off", as if the writers were tossing the fanbase off. This is closer in spirit to ScriptWank, which is as if the writers are tossing ''themselves'' off.

** The term is safe enough for police forces in [[CanadaEh Alberta and Saskatchewan]] to run a [[PublicServiceAnnouncement series of ads]] with the slogan, "If you drink and drive, you're a bloody idiot!" The ads did draw protests from Canadians, but for using the word "idiot."

* ''Franchise/YuGiOh'':
** In the dub of ''Anime/YuGiOh'' by Creator/FourKidsEntertainment, Sid says "git", which, to Britons, is a very mild expletive but still not one you'd expect to hear on a kids' show (especially not one dubbed by a company famous for its [[{{Bowdlerise}} bowdlerization]]).
** In ''Anime/YuGiOhGX'', Jim refers to the Pachycephalo as "Pachy", which sounds a little too much like a racist term for Pakistani people.

* The reverse is also true, but in the case of the author not caring to look up equivalent terms to the ones they're using, for European/Canadian writers writing for American characters. For instance, if a character's in high school, they could end up saying "lessons" instead of "periods." In American English, "lessons" isn't used for normal classes in school, only when you're being taught a skill like how to play an instrument (as in "piano lessons"), rather than simply being told facts in a regular class, or spellings being different, like "-ise" endings instead of "-ize" or an extra "o" or "u" in some words that aren't in the American spellings and the author didn't know or care to change the spellings. The second one's less egregious, but it still crops up.

This is also used intentionally, to the opposite effect: unfamiliar or [[ForeignCussWord foreign swear words]] may be used where an equivalent local expression [[ValuesDissonance would be inappropriate]]. (In the 1950s and 1960s "bloody" was considered extremely offensive in the U.K., and was censored from BBC broadcasts, but in more modern times it is considered to be a very mild expletive, on a par with "damn" but much less than "fucking": you could use the word "bloody" in a business meeting with no eyebrows raised, and a teenager using the word contextually would not get told off for swearing. On the other hand, it can also mean absolutely nothing more than a way of emphasizing your point in Australia.)

* Creator/HarryTurtledove doesn't do too badly at curse levels but uses things like 'bloody' far too often in a lot of cases (which has to be quite a bit, given how much we use it). Furthermore, some of the slang is simply wrong. 'Crikey' is an exclamation of surprise (synonymous with 'Cripes'), not a swearword that you can chuck in anywhere.

* Creator/{{Freeform}} misspelled the word "numpty" as "numptie" when they tried to promote a broadcast of ''Film/HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallowsPart2'' on Facebook.

** ''Chrono Trigger'' features enemies called Buggers (possibly a ShoutOut by the translators to the ''Literature/EndersGame'' example, but as they are robotic and accompanied by enemies called "Debuggers", it is likely to be a coding reference and unintentionally funny). The UsefulNotes/NintendoDS release had a new translation that changed the enemies' names to Verminator and Deverminator respectively since that release was the first time the game made it across the Atlantic. The new names seem to imply that they're rogue pest control robots.

** ''VideoGame/SuperMarioRPG'' has Croco refer to Mario as a "persistent bugger" at one point, although it helps that [[NoExportForYou it wasn't released in Europe]] until the UsefulNotes/VirtualConsole (which changed "bugger" to "pest", anyway). In addition, and similarly to the ''Mario Kart 8'' example, Bowser's victory animation in the Japanese version is a BicepPolishingGesture that had to be altered in international releases.

* Parodied in ''[[WebVideo/TheAngryVideoGameNerd The Angry Video Game Nerd's]]'' review of the UsefulNotes/{{Amiga}} [=CD32=], when he's forced to use a power adapter since the console [[NoExportForYou was never released in North America]] and decides to "adapt" his swears too by using terms like "bloody", "cunt", "bollocks", "wank", and "arse".

* Linus Torvalds, the creator of the [[UsefulNotes/{{Unix}} Linux kernel]], [[HeAlsoDid also created]] a popular version control system called git, a name that is quite amusing to speakers of British English[[note]]Torvalds is a Finnish-born native Swedish speaker who now lives in the US, and says he was unaware of British meaning when naming the software[[/note]]. When this was brought to his attention, he quipped that the name is appropriate because, like [[EgocentricTeamNaming Linux]], it's [[{{Jerkass}} named]] [[InsufferableGenius after]] [[SelfDeprecation himself]].

* In ''Literature/TheLegendOfRahAndTheMuggles'', [[CardCarryingVillain Zyn]] utters the [[SoBadItsGood priceless]] line "That’s why I’m the leader of this pathetic group. The only thing you little buggers do is ask questions." Seeing as the author marketed the book for children ages six to twelve, she presumably was unaware of what "buggers" actually meant.

** Giles calls Wesley a "berk" at one point, which is a fairly mild insult in the UK (and presumably elsewhere, if it’s used at all), bandied about in a way comparable to calling someone an idiot... provided you don’t know that it is short for "Berkeley Hunt", which is itself rhyming slang...

* The word 'twat' in some parts of Britain has the same meaning as the [[CountryMatters C-word]] (albeit less extreme, with "fanny" being a far less offensive, school version of both), but in Scotland, it is often used as a marginally-more-offensive form of "twit" (as in "you complete twat"). When a scientist was quoted as saying anyone who thought the Large Hadron Collider was going to destroy the world was "being a twat," it was rather amusing to note the difference in how many letters of the word, if any, various newspapers chose to censor.

** "Kafir" was originally just the UsefulNotes/{{Arabic|Language}} word for any nonbeliever. In the UsefulNotes/{{Islam}}ic world it certainly isn't a ''positive'' thing to call someone, but it's more akin to the English "heathen" or "infidel" than anything else. But because Arab slavers used it for practitioners of traditional African faiths (who made up a big chunk of the slaves they traded), the term eventually caught on among people of European descent to denote anyone of sub-Saharan African descent. As such it's become [[http://www.cracked.com/personal-experiences-2134-5-things-i-learned-growing-up-in-neo-nazi-militia.html South Africa's answer to the N word]]. The word [[SpellMyNameWithAnS usually appears as "kaffir" or "kaffer"]] when used in a racist way, but one should still tread lightly regardless of spelling and context, as the slur has been punishable as hate speech in South Africa since even UsefulNotes/TheApartheidEra (hey, [[EvenEvilHasStandards even white supremacists have standards]]). Incidentally the similar-sounding UsefulNotes/{{Turk|ey}}ish term ''gâvur'', which also means "nonbeliever," is regarded in the former Ottoman Empire as an offensive slur, in this case against UsefulNotes/{{Christian|ity}}s. But the similar sound to "kafir" is actually a coincidence, as the Turkish word derives from a Farsi (Persian) word for a UsefulNotes/{{Zoroastrian|ism}}.

This works both ways, as there are a lot of words that are offensive in the US, but innocuous elsewhere in the Anglosphere, such as "fag" referring to cigarettes in Britain, but being a homophobic slur in the U.S.. Conversely, of course, there can be some culture shock when an American watches a British show made for a post-{{watershed}} time slot and sees/hears content that simply wouldn't make the cut for US broadcast TV.

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) flipping the bird in some countries such as the U.K..

[[caption-width-right:350:Apparently, someone told them that "fuckin'" was American slang for "really good".]]

This works both ways, as there are a lot of words that are offensive in the US, but innocuous elsewhere in the Anglosphere, such as "fag" referring to cigarettes in Britain, but being a widespread homophobic insult in the U.S.. Conversely, of course, there can be some culture shock when an American watches a British show made for a post-{{watershed}} time slot and sees/hears content that simply wouldn't make the cut for US broadcast TV.

** Another pearl is the Latino/Spanish/Italian 'De mi culo' (literally 'from my ass'). Israelis somehow decided this means corrupt/incompetent adjective. In one notable instance, a parliament member called her own party that...

* ''VideoGame/PokemonSwordAndShield'' is an inversion. Unlike previous games in the series, where forgetting a move and replacing it with a new one would cause the game's narration to say "One, two, and... poof!", ''Sword'' and ''Shield'' instead say "Ta-da!". This is because "poof" is a homophobic slur in the U.K., equivalent to referring to someone as a "fag" in Canada and the United States. However, the word's usage within the game series had actually been perfectly acceptable, since it was used as a sound effect rather than referring to a person.

* The original box art for ''VideoGame/Left4Dead2'' showed the back of a hand with the middle and index fingers raised, a fairly innocuous gesture in the States, but not so much elsewhere, requiring a change to be made for overseas boxes. [[http://i.neoseeker.com/gg/uploads/news/8-2009/news_img_23652_0.jpg Can be seen side-by-side here.]]

** The [[https://www.sonicstadium.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Sonic-Heroes-EU-PS2-Box-Art.jpg European box art]] for ''VideoGame/SonicHeroes'' has the titular hedgehog holding up three fingers to symbolise the three-character teams used in the game. The three fingers in question are his thumb, index and middle fingers, from the back. The [[http://www.blueblur.org/games/heroes/images/heroesBoxArt.jpg American box art]] doesn't show his hand.

** In the rest of the world, "Bantu" refers to [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bantu_peoples a collection of ethnic groups]] who speak [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bantu_languages a family of related languages]] spoken by a majority of the population in southern, central, and much of eastern Africa. In South Africa talking about Bantu languages is acceptable, but referring to ''people'' as "Bantu" has pejorative connotations because the apartheid regime used that term to refer to Black South Africans. It doesn't help that Black people were forced to live in segregated "homelands" (a bit like South Africa's answer to TheRez) that were internationally nicknamed [[{{Countrystan}} Bantustans]].

* 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 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!"

** This was the reason why ''[[VideoGame/SonicRushSeries Sonic Rush Adventure]]'' was initially given a 12+ rating by PEGI -- in one cutscene, Marine the Raccoon said the word "bugger". The game's rating went down to 3+ after the word was removed. Amusingly, this makes Marine one of the few Sonic characters to swear in English-language media, and gives her the dubious honor of having said said the most ''offensive'' swearword of them; [[VideoGame/SonicAdventure2 Sonic]] and [[VideoGame/ShadowTheHedgehog Shadow]] have merely said "damn", which is far milder.

* 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[[note]]former chancellor of Germany[[/note]] 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 met with confusion.

* Winters (part of Foggyland, the game's equivalent of Europe) is the equivalent of the UK (especially England, but there's also a Loch Ness counterpart) in the ''VideoGame/{{EarthBound}}'' verse, but Dr. Andonuts uses the word "fag" as an insult rather than to refer to a cigarette in ''VideoGame/TheHalloweenHack''.

* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' and ''Series/{{Angel}}'' lived and breathed this trope through the character of [[BadassDecay Spike]] and occasionally Giles:

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) flipping the bird in some countries such as the U.K..

* In the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' of Creator/AAPessimal, the first [[AmoralAfrikaner Rimwards Howondalandian]] character was introduced with the then intention that she would be a one-shot character who would amplify all the NationalStereotypes everybody thought they knew about UsefulNotes/SouthAfrica and [[AmoralAfrikaner white South Africans]]. Consequently, the character's use of the Afrikaans language was, to be kind, sketchy, and unconvincing: Pessimal [[WordOfGod crossed his fingers and hoped nobody would notice]] if her native tongue turned out to be a mish-mash of Dutch, German, and half-remembered badly spelled Saffie expletives. When he realized he wasn't going to be allowed to drop the character, her Afrikaans - and his - got progressively better and he began doing the bloody research more thoroughly.

* ''Series/StargateAtlantis'' fics featuring Zelenka (whose actor David Nykl is well-known for getting away with routine Czech swearwords in the series) may end up with wildly incongruous levels of Czech swearing - running the gamut from expressions that are comically much milder than what Zelenka does actually use, to downright obscene expressions that David Nykl would probably never dare to use in public...

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie}}'', an old lady calls [=SpongeBob=] a "Knucklehead Mc'''Spaz'''atron!" - the filmmakers unaware that "spaz" is an offensive term in the United Kingdom for a person with a physical and/or mental disability. Despite the term being used, it slipped under the radar, and was never removed from the film in the UK.

** Non-offensive example -- the band of carpenters is referred to as "blokes" by their boss. Obviously, the translator has heard that "blokes" = "guys" - however, when an English-speaking player sees "Come on, you blokes!" it stands out as if he had instead greeted a group of women with "Come on, you females!" In Australia the terms are interchangeable, but the character's supposed to be British, and British people don't use "blokes" that way. "Mate", "pal", or "chum" would make more sense in context.

** In ''[[VideoGame/LuigisMansion Luigi's Mansion]]'', Professor E. Gadd refers to a ghost as "the little bugger". In the U.K., at least, this seems unusually strong language for a kid's game.

** ''VideoGame/MarioParty8'' 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.
** The GBA game ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiSuperstarSaga'' features a race of snails named "winkles". Nothing wrong with that in America - 'winkle' is simply a shortened form of 'periwinkle', which is a snail. But in the southern U.K., "winkle" is also an old-fashioned childish word for a male organ. And this is a game primarily aimed at kids.

* ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog'':

** This was the reason why ''[[VideoGame/SonicRushSeries Sonic Rush Adventure]]'' was initially given a 12+ rating by PEGI - in one cutscene, Marine the Raccoon said the word "bugger". The game's rating went down to 3+ after the word was removed. Amusingly, this makes Marine one of the few Sonic characters to swear in English-language media, and gives her the dubious honor of having said said the most ''offensive'' swearword of them; [[VideoGame/SonicAdventure2 Sonic]] and [[VideoGame/ShadowTheHedgehog Shadow]] have merely said "damn", which is far milder.

** Linkara once, "borrowed a phrase from the British" to describe people as 'twats', but pronounced it 't-wot' - to rhyme with hot, instead of 't-wat' to rhyme with hat. This is how the word is pronounced in the United States, but ''not'' in the UK. Cue many confused British people wondering what the hell a twart is and why it's apparently British.

** ''Family Guy'' have also used to the 'w' word - when Stewie makes it to the set of ''Jolly Farm Revue'' and is told to "Piss off, you grotty little wanker!" ''Family Guy'' being the [[RefugeInAudacity tasteful show it is]], they probably knew what was being said, judging by previous examples of ''Family Guy'' fun with Anglicisms:

** Bart has used the word "wanker" several times, and more JustForFun/{{egregious}}ly, Groundskeeper Willie used the word "shite" to describe a tractor. You'd think people would notice that it's just one almost silent letter away from its American counterpart. (Creator/SkyOne apparently didn't notice this until ''after'' their first airing of this episode - unsurprisingly it's cut from future screenings, and as Creator/Channel4 runs the series at 6 pm it's safe to say it's snipped there as well.)

* 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 varieties]]: 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.
** Conversely, the thumbs down, used in most English-speaking countries as a completely inoffensive gesture of disapproval, is very rude in Japan - the nonverbal equivalent of "go to hell".

* Some years ago, a US network purchased an Australian TV show (''Series/TheFlyingDoctors'') but required certain dialogue changes made - specifically, when a young boy describes his injuries as hurting 'like buggery'. In Australian, although most people are aware of the actual meaning of the word, it's rarely used that way or censored when used in other ways. The comedy troupe ''Doug Anthony All Stars'' got considerable mileage out of variations on this joke:

** Adding onto this is the fact that "retard" is also a ''verb'', meaning "to slow or suppress", such as "retarding the progress" of something. In such cases, however, the word is pronounced differently, with the emphasis placed on the second syllable ("re-TARD") as supposed to the first ("RE-tard") to provide distinction. Take [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmbzKsqKQoI this cockpit video]] of a landing Airbus [=A350=], for example, which issues the callout sequence "400, 300, 200, Minimum, 100, 70, 60, 50, 40, 30, 20 - RETARD, RETARD" during final approach. In this case, "RETARD" means to "retard the throttles", thereby stopping reducing power to the engines.

** It was also the abbreviation for the (British) First Aid Nursing Yeomanry in WWII - making it possible to say (usually without any joke intended) "Some [=FANYs=] are at the front."

* Fox Sports showed a lot of interest in British sports by being one of the first outlets to report on English footballer Wayne Rooney's plan to leave Manchester United. Just as impressive was their choice of article name - 'Later, wankers.' It was changed, but British papers and panel shows had a field day.

** Many curse words are loanwords from Russian and Arabic are perceived as far milder in Hebrew (actually, only elderly people in Israel would really frown upon curse words nowadays). For instance, the common phrase ''kus emek'' "כוס אמק" (literally 'yo' mamma's cunt' in colloquial Arabic, used as a very strong version of 'fuck!' or 'fuck you!') could startle Arabs but is seen as a frequent term of displeasure for Hebrews, albeit somewhat crude (somewhat like 'damnit'). Similarly the most common Russian curse word in Hebrew, ''k yebyona mat'', literally meaning 'to the fucking mother', is pronounced ''kibinimat'' "קיבינימט" in Hebrew, with the vast majority of native Hebrew speakers entirely unaware of its meaning and using it as an equivalent of 'kus emek', or as the equivalent of English 'Hell' or 'to Hell' ("send them ''kibinimat''"/"to ''kibinimat''" is like a crude version of 'to Hell with them', and 'go ''kibinimat''' is, well, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin go to Hell]]). These habits may have been picked up osmotically from Polish, where the equivalent of ''kus emek'' - ''kurwa mać'' is used exactly the way described above, and the expression ''kibinimat'' (or ''kibinimater'') is still in use, though to lesser extent than it was before the World War II.

* One of the differences between the Croatian and Serbian standards of the common Serbo-Croatian language is the correct term for "Jew". In Croatia, "židov" is a perfectly normal and acceptable word, however in Serbia that same word carries the "yid" connotation and is thus highly offensive (well, less so than "čifutin", which is an archaic term that used to mean "Jew" all the way up to the early 20th century, but has since took up the meaning of "kike" - the only acceptible usage of ''that'' word are local works and translations that are grandfathered, or, well, using it to portray antisemitic insults).

* ''VideoGame/{{Pikmin}}'': Starting with the Wii ports, the British versions of the series change the name of the Wollywogs and Wogpoles to Wollyhops and Wolpoles, respectively. The original name is derived from "polliwog", an American slang word for frogs, but "wog" is a racial slur outside of America (for Aboriginal people in Australia and for any person with dark skin in Britain). While this localization difference would be maintained in ''VideoGame/Pikmin3'', starting with the Nintendo Switch versions of the first two ''Pikmin'' games, the Wollyhop and Wolpole names are used in both English versions across the board - a trait that continues into''VideoGame/Pikmin4''.

** 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 (with whom Trevor Noah says he had little in common, culturally speaking), 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.

* ''VideoGame/{{Pikmin}}'': Starting with the Wii ports, the European and Australian versions of the series change the name of the Wollywogs and Wogpoles to Wollyhops and Wolpoles, respectively. The original name is derived from "polliwog", an American slang word for frogs, but "wog" is a racial slur outside of America (for Aboriginal people in Australia and for any person with dark skin in Britain). While this localization difference would be maintained in ''VideoGame/Pikmin3'', Wollyhop and Wolpole are used in all versions of ''VideoGame/Pikmin4''.