Halloween Profanity–For Children!

Halloween Profanity–For Children!

What if you’re writing a book for children, but you want a character to swear profusely?

In my upcoming middle grade chapter book, Pumpkin Goblins, I have a goblin character fond of “swearing.” Like so:

“Right, right.” Hobkit clapped him on the shoulder. “I’ll join you. Could use a break from all this chaos and malarkey, batdarnit.”

Hobkit has a bigger role in the revision than he did in the rough draft, and the more he speaks, the more time I spend trying to think up creative new phrases…

“Dagnabbit. Of all the bat-plagued, magic-cursed rotten timing!”

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Pumpkin, pumpkin, pumpkin.

…because using “bat” and “pumpkin” repeatedly was getting tiring. I wanted to come up with a bunch of options at once. So, inspired by The Terribleminds Profanity Generator, I made my own word lists to generate Halloweeny, child-safe invectives. Actually, I drew a lot of my own words from his lists, but I needed a certain number of Halloween words thrown in there also.

So get out your d20 (or your Online Dice Roller, for those that don’t have twenty-sided dice on them at the moment) and join me in some long-form, clean profanity. Which can be easily dirtied!

Noun list one:
  1. Geist
  2. Donkey
  3. Turnip
  4. Radish
  5. Rat
  6. Bucket
  7. Bag
  8. Wizard
  9. Witch
  10. Fruit
  11. Squirrel
  12. Ghoul
  13. Trowel
  14. Vampire
  15. Lackey
  16. Monster
  17. Ghost
  18. Bat
  19. Pumpkin
  20. Spook
Noun list two:
  1. Scum
  2. Barf
  3. Vulture
  4. Mold
  5. Mildew
  6. Elf
  7. Corn
  8. Human
  9. Crumb
  10. Gourd
  11. Jelly
  12. Soup
  13. Biscuit
  14. Thorn
  15. Widget
  16. Badger
  17. Grave
  18. Owl
  19. Broom
  20. Twig
Verbs, -ing
  1. Cursing
  2. Plaguing
  3. Gargling
  4. Nobbling
  5. Crying
  6. Chomping
  7. Crunching
  8. Roasting
  9. Creeping
  10. Beeping
  11. Snatching
  12. Cavorting
  13. Spooking
  14. Haunting
  15. Licking
  16. Rocking
  17. Boiling
  18. Clipping
  19. Mapping
  20. Gumming
Verbs, -ed
  1. Buried
  2. Tossed
  3. Nobbled
  4.  Kicked
  5. Tumbled
  6. Dangled
  7. Cursed
  8. Smacked
  9. Spackled
  10. Crackled
  11. Rustled
  12. Plagued
  13. Smoked
  14. Blighted
  15. Scrabbled
  16. Creeped
  17. Haunted
  18. Spooked
  19. Snatched
  20. Trotted

Using the formula (Noun list 1) + (Verb, -ing), (Noun list 2) + (Verb, -ed) I got:

Elf plaguing, twig-smacked

And

Turnip gumming, jelly-haunted

My goblin character tends to curse in adjective form, already having specific things in mind to rant about. Things like other goblins, wizards, elves, and pumpkin cars.

“You turnip gumming, jelly-haunted wizard! Are you trying to destroy Halloween?”

I could also do something like:

(Noun from either list) + (Verb, -ed) – ed

To create the compound expletive wizardspackle.

“Wizardspackle! Are you trying to kill us all?”

On the one hand, I’ve now saved time on curse creation.

On the other hand, I’m now likely to waste revision time by doing this. Gourdrustle!

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