This one’s pretty easy.
I just crossed the 4,000 Twitter follower mark, which is pretty cool. I mean, sure, 3,465 of them are insane Twitter robots who are trying to sell me porn, iPads, real estate, and baby formula…
…but whatever it takes to feed my manic hunger for adoration.
*gibber, howl, snargh*
As such, I want to give you a copy of CONFESSIONS OF A FREELANCE PENMONKEY.
I’m going to give away 10 copies in PDF, Kindle, or Nook format.
How it works is like this: you have 24 hours (till 4pm EST on 6/14/11) to drop a comment into the comments below. What should go into this comment, you ask?
Your favorite word of profanity, and a short description as to why that might be. I figure this is entirely reasonable, given how sodden with wretched language CONFESSIONS happens to be. One assumes that if you’re not comfortable dropping some language yourself, you won’t be comfortable reading through CONFESSIONS. And besides, who doesn’t love a little cussin’?
At 4pm I’ll come back to this post and pick my ten favorite answers. Those folks get a copy of the book.
Jump in. Get to cursing. Get creative. And please to enjoy.
EDIT:
THE WINNERS:
Tamsyn: “Bollocks!” Description made me laugh.
Caytlin: “Shitting Dicknipples,” because that sounds like a bad high school teacher’s name.
Kara: “Twat.” Calling it “cunt’s classy cousin” is pretty genius.
Penrefe: “Dick.” Simple. A classic.
Joanna: “Imperial Fuckton.” Like something out of a filthy version of Star Wars.
Antimony: “Dhallar.” Because now we all can learn something, too.
Patrick Regan: “Flaming Thunder-cunt.” Because, how mythic.
Emily B: “Throatfuck.” Because that one’s new to me.
Sarah: “Cock Holster.” It’s really so elegant.
Spomenka: “Slattern.” Why not go old-school?
And that’s our ten, folks.
It was a tough choice. Be on notice. Really enjoyed roadwhore, cuntblocker, twatwaffle. So many good ones. But these are the ones that spoke to me in the cockles of my heart.
YOU TEN PEOPLE:
Hit me up either using the Contact Form above or at chuckwendig [at] terribleminds [dot] com and I’ll get you squared away with a copy of PENMONKEY.
Sue London says:
Son of a biscuit.
While entirely innocent it holds out until the end before admitting that it is g-rated.
June 13, 2011 — 8:00 PM
T.W.Wombat says:
ShitBitchBallFucker.
Why? Because my wife’s cat doesn’t quite have the hang of stringing words together and it was the most vulgar thing she could think of when she was really pissed from being picked up and hugged. I love it because you can put a comma in there anywhere and it changes the meaning. So Shit, BitchBallFucker has a very different meaning than ShitBitchBall, Fucker.
And here’s a bonus story for you. Back in my college theater days, we had a tradition to break the tension that inevitably grew during production weeks. Someone would shout out, “Attitude Check!” And the assembled masses would shout back “FUCK YOU!” And then, “Positive Attitude Check!” And the masses would shout back louder, “POSITIVELY FUCK YOU!” And the whole room would smile.
Vulgarity as community-builder. You know it’s true, bitches.
June 13, 2011 — 8:04 PM
Paul says:
rat bastards – Able to use in personal and professional life on a daily basis
June 13, 2011 — 8:05 PM
Jennifer "The Heathen" Monroe says:
My favorite? Fuckin’-A, Wendig, you want me to choose? By favorite, you mean the one I love-holy-mother-of-dog-better than every other one? Or the one I utter the most?
Judging by my children’s peppery speech, I’d have to say “Holy Shit” or “Hell” are my favorites, but if you get me good and likkered up, and I mean on whiskey, none of that shitty ass frou-frou frozen namby-pamby crapola, I’d lean in real close, put my hand on your shoulder, and shout in your ear,
“Goddammit, Chuck. I love the utter wrongness of invoking god at the same time I’m taunting him to beam me the fuck up. I live in a goddamn mecca of goddamn churches, and if there’s anything that gets my juices flowing, it’s a good goddamn.”
May the Flying Spaghetti Monster strike me dead.
June 13, 2011 — 8:06 PM
Shauna Granger says:
Fuck Monkey(s) – it really portrays just how goddamn stupid someone is and how much their stupidity makes your head hurt.
June 13, 2011 — 8:18 PM
jenn says:
Fuck. Definitely. As in the long, drawn out Fuuuuuuuuuhhck…or For Fuck’s Sake…or You’ve Gotta Be Fucking Kidding Me With This Shit {hey! a two-fer!}. My Mom stopped cringing at fuck years ago — but don’t let her hear you say dammit or you’ll get The Look.
June 13, 2011 — 8:25 PM
Carol says:
When I’m driving it’s usually: “get out of the way fucknuts!” or “move it ass-hat!” But if it’s someone who’s just generally pissing me off I’ll tell them to: “Go take a flying fuck through a rolling donut!”
June 13, 2011 — 8:33 PM
Emily B says:
Throatfuck.
As in: “Caitlin and Laurence are such throatfucks.”
The raw, pulsating, Germanic beauty of “throatfuck” suggests its subjects should really just go choke and die; that maybe they’re a mix of cum and spit and mucus and vomit; also that I hate them more than anything.
June 13, 2011 — 8:38 PM
Stephen Blackmoore says:
Pus filled, lazy-eyed, drool dripping, semen soaked, rat-fucking, cockknocker.
And it works as haiku, too.
And I already got a copy of your book. I just like swearing.
A lot.
June 13, 2011 — 8:50 PM
Pickles says:
Drifter-twat: I realize that twat has been done on this list already, but I think this is a nice variant. It’s particularly useful in describing the smell of a place that you might not like. For example: “Yeah, I went to the roller rink, but I couldn’t stay there. It smelled like a drifter’s twat.”
It also works nicely with hobo, if you want to go auld timey with it.
Also works well for food, when applied to taste. Hell, get creative and you could really use it anywhere.
June 13, 2011 — 8:57 PM
KDJames says:
Hmmm. I’ve got to say, my most used profanity is some version of fuck.
When I step in cat yak first thing in the morning, I usually opt for, “What the goddamn fucking hell, cat!”
But I can’t believe that in almost 60 comments, no one has mentioned “bloody.” It’s such a great modifier. Bloody hell. Goddamned bloody bastard. Fucking bloody asshole.
Please do not pick me for your top ten list, Wendig. My mother would fucking die of shame.
June 13, 2011 — 9:04 PM
Casz Brewster says:
hund sie loch bohne sich sammeln — It’s hillbilly German that means go pick beans in a dog’s ass. (long story)
But sometimes I just tell people they are fuck-tards. Completely inappropriate but when used, nothing better suits.
June 13, 2011 — 9:07 PM
KDJames says:
Now that I think about it, my favourite profanity ever was spoken by a Scot. I have NO IDEA what he said, but it was awesome. Really, you haven’t lived until you’ve heard a Scotsman with a thick accent lose his temper after a few drinks and swear a blue streak.
And no, it was not directed AT me. Why would you even think such a thing?
June 13, 2011 — 9:13 PM
RayStevens says:
My younger sister–age ten now–is a somewhat inexplicable font of profanity. No one in the house swore before she, the youngest person in the house, mastered an unholy lexicon by studying Youtube comment chains at length, but we’ve all learned from her example and curse freely now. One of her more memorable ones, something she coined herself, I think, was “sag-ass”. She applied it liberally to our mother until it started to bore her after several months, by which point it was almost a nickname. One that no one else used, of course. Don’t look at me like that.
June 13, 2011 — 9:32 PM
Sarah says:
There is nothing I love more than a really well-played “CUNT.”
It really embarrasses the shit out of most civilized folks.
June 13, 2011 — 9:44 PM
oldestgenxer says:
Christ in a sidecar, this shit is fucking hard! Goddammit if my asshole hasn’t been puckered like a sonofabitch all the live-long day, contemplating this quandary.
I think I like the word balls. It’s stealthy. It’s not always dirty. It makes junior high kids giggle. It makes adults giggle. It’s made America’s Funniest Home Videos a whole genre to explore. You can invite someone to engage in a variety of activities with them, depending on your familiarity with them or current level of disdain.
And if they don’t like it, they lick my hairy balls.
June 13, 2011 — 10:05 PM
What? says:
Assbut
not only does it have the decency to be a polite insult, but it also makes the insulted screw up their face in concentration to figure out what the hell i just said. which, obviously leaves them open to more insults
June 13, 2011 — 10:06 PM
Susan H. says:
I have a fondness for skull fuck.
It can be either really lovely fellatio or a truly distrubing way to die.
June 13, 2011 — 10:28 PM
Steve – Kestrel's Aerie says:
Bullshit. I know, I know…it’s something your dad said. Well, I’m that old. Sure, I can throw at the (more than) occasional “fuck” but hell, EVERYONE does that. Bullshit covers so much more territory, and being polysyllabic, it has a built-in elegance you don’t find with monosyllabic vulgarities.
Sure, after twenty years in the military, I can be quite expressive, obscenely, but “bullshit” just works, time after time after time.
Say it with me: BULLSHIT
June 13, 2011 — 10:39 PM
Mary Jo Beug says:
Although I’m American, my favorite naughty word is shite. It’s the steamy pile of poo with a fancy feather on top. A gussied up version of shit, I imagine it’s the glamorous fecal matter of movie stars. Adding a bloody in front makes it dirtier, chunkier. “He’s a bloody shite, he is.”
I have learned so much tonight. I have new words. No longer will I be politically incorrect when referring to a certain someone while simultaneously demeaning the learning impaired. I can drop the word idiot from my vocabulary and adopt fucktard as his code name instead. Much better. I look forward to picking up a word for a couple of co-workers as well.
June 13, 2011 — 10:53 PM
PisceseMuse says:
ShitFuck – said like it’s all one word. It’s simple and concise and warps too satisfying profanities into one. It’s not so creative that I have to mentally think about it to warp my tongue around and so rolls off nice and smoothly and is enough to have both my hubby and dogs looking at me like I have lost my marbles. Which rightfully I probably have. Also it is incredibly not very ladylike and in good company. Really I like cursing quite a bit, but lack on the creative side, as it is strongly discourage. However if I were more creative their wouldn’t be the constant eyebrow raising of I thought you were better than that. Then again it would be said with the same inflection as a cuss, so I think I will stick with SHITFUCK for its simplicity and ease of use.
June 13, 2011 — 11:15 PM
Chadwick Scott says:
“Cum stain.” It’s the lowest of the low, kinda like pond scum. Calling someone a cum stain is the epitome of worthlessness. Thus, I love using the phrase.
June 13, 2011 — 11:41 PM
Tymoriel says:
Cockass, the spontaneous profanity created by Jack Black on the Tenacious D album.
June 14, 2011 — 12:03 AM
Spomenka says:
“Slattern.”
“What? WHO USES THAT WORD? PEOPLE IN THE 18TH CENTURY?!?”
“Look. You’re my dirty, filthy little slattern. You’re not some dressed up pink-tongued tart. Who has your ponytail in their fist?”
“…you do.”
“And who is the strumpet here? The rosy-cheeked, primped and crimped little velveteen wench?”
“…I am.”
“Slattern.”
June 14, 2011 — 12:14 AM
James Patrick Schmidt says:
“Hell”. Mostly because I use lazy speech patterns sometimes and it’s a good replacement for “so” at the beginning of a sentence.
June 14, 2011 — 1:02 AM
Madeline says:
I recently invented this one myself while working on my father’s truck. There’s nothing better to pass the time on boring vehicles (and piss off the neighbors) like randomly shouting obscenities. Here is is: fagnificent. It can be a noun or an adjective. I have a lot of magnificent gay friends, so it seems to fit nicely, and they all like it a lot. It has become a part of my daily vocabulary.
June 14, 2011 — 1:26 AM
Andrew says:
“Fucksocks.”
If you’re going to say something just before you pop your clogs, it might as well be a swearword. Used as alternative dialogue for any movie moment when a character realises that their time is up, and they are rather suprised about it.
June 14, 2011 — 2:01 AM
VDGriesdoorn says:
Pleuris, tyfus, kankerzooi!
Where I grew up, we had the odd habit of exclaming the most horrible diseases.
Pleuris is short for pleuritis which is inflammation of lining of the lungs and chest.
Tyfus is a bastardisation of typhoid.
And most horribly, kankerzooi is literally a cancerous mess.
Not something I wish on anyone anymore as much. Wonder why….?
June 14, 2011 — 2:46 AM
Craig Pay says:
‘Fucking fucker’s fucked.’
More of a sentence than a single word, but shows how flexible that little word is.
June 14, 2011 — 5:29 AM
windsweptfungus says:
Holy Fuck-nuggets. The hyphen is important because you need a slight pause between the ck and n. Stress the o in holy and you get: Hoooolly… Fuck-nuggets. It let’s people relax into thinking you aren’t going to curse then you shock them with the hard fuck and confuse them with the absurdity of nuggets. The profanity trifecta.
June 14, 2011 — 6:11 AM
Inkblot says:
Clusterfuck.
Origins – Military, also politely referred to as “Charlie Foxtrot”.
Meaning – A complete mess, where everything that could have gone wrong went wrong.
Shituation I applied it to recently – That whole project was a goddamned clusterfuck – over budget, behind time and shitty-ass execution. (It’s the profanity that helps us finance types get through the day.)
Why I love it – Sounds like a feeding frenzy of sharks attacked a massive mating ball of anacondas in heat.
If I get picked – I already bought Confessions, so Irregular Creatures it would have to be. I’ve already been pimping Confessions all round.
June 14, 2011 — 6:17 AM
Coyote Southbridge says:
Mine would be a three way tie between jack-assery, Wiley bastard, and douche nozzle (yes I’m channeling my inner fratboy). However if you want the good stuff all you have to do is hand me a video game controller and the creative and extensive swearing pours forth from my mouth like a belching geyser of profanity. I hear it’s pretty funny to watch.
June 14, 2011 — 7:52 AM
Maggie Carroll says:
There is no epithet more versatile than “fuck”. It’s a noun, it’s a verb, it’s an adjective.It’s a command, interjection, preposition. Toss an “ing” on that mother and it’s an adverb too. You can use it as virtually every word in a sentence. As David Della Rocco said: “Fuckin’- What the fuckin’. Fuck. Who the fuck fucked this fucking… How did you two fucking fucks… FUCK!”
Which certainly illustrates the diversity of the word.
June 14, 2011 — 8:28 AM
Thomas Pluck says:
I tend to make portmanteau words like “you stupid cockfuck!” but lately my favorite is
“you demented cuntlicker!” because I think cocksucker, while classic, gets too much play.
when children are present, muppethugger is a good substitute for the word it sounds like, if someone cuts you off in traffic or you smash your finger with a ball peen hammer.
Ha. Ball peen.
June 14, 2011 — 8:31 AM
Geoff Skellams says:
I’m partial to “cocksucker” these days, particularly if spoken with a bad Chinese accent. I blame Mr Wu in Deadwood for this.
(“Bollocks” is something I tend to say a lot as well, usually when I screw something up).
June 14, 2011 — 8:35 AM
Gary M. Sarli says:
“Fuck knuckle.”
(1) One, it evokes imagery that juxtaposes intercourse with knuckles — i.e. fisting. ‘Nuff said.
(2) It has a delightful ring to it: its cadence, the way its first two syllables rhyme. It’s just a pleasant treat to find a situation in which it applies.
(3) “K” sounds are inherently funny (e.g. Cucamonga, Keokuk, Seattle … wait, got my brain caught in an old Simpsons bit for a second there).
(4) Not only does this have two “k” sounds, it even has an extra silent “k” to really drive home the awesomeness.
June 14, 2011 — 8:57 AM
Houser says:
So many people are in my boat with loving “fuck” for its versatility as well as the very cathartic sound/feel of it. Problem is, I can’t use that answer because that won’t get me mah free goodies from big C-Dub. So all Fuck aside…I think I’ll go with ‘cocksnot’. It rarely fails to get the desired cringing, deer-in-headlights-pause result from the target and surrounding audience members. And the image of a penis sneezing and needing a tissue is pretty goddamned funny to me. To you, too. Oh, yes it is. Liar.
June 14, 2011 — 9:11 AM
Reba says:
Twatwaffle. Because we don’t actually USE douchebags anymore (that was some crazy shit they were asking us to pipe up to lady town). The meaning is similar, but you can also use it to mean someone particularly stupid or merely clueless. Also, for some reason, it seems to offend men more than douchebag, which is as much involved with female genitalia, albeit external rather than internal. Similarly, women don’t like to have their lady bits referred to as twats (which your spell check recognizes – hooray for progress!), but would prefer that to cunt, which is only acceptable when one is being slammed by one’s chosen partner in the manner of one’s choosing and all the filters disappear.
June 14, 2011 — 10:05 AM
Gina says:
“Crack-ass of dawn.”
It’s one of those, “goddamnit why do I have to wake up this goddamn early on my day off” situations, and you can say it in conversation without people flinching. Then a few seconds pass, and they wonder “Wait, did she really just say that?”
June 14, 2011 — 10:08 AM
Kim says:
Shitwit. Because I teach so many of them. Sadly, I cannot use this term in their presence, but I do invoke it on occasion at my local Brewsters after a long day at school…
June 14, 2011 — 10:34 AM
Allyson says:
“cuntblocker/cuntblock”
Because there needs to be a female equivalent of “cockblock,” and “pussyblock” doesn’t have the right sound to it.
June 14, 2011 — 10:52 AM
Deelorass says:
Fuckity-fuck-fuck-fuck
A compound curse for special occations. Nothing soothes a stubbed toe better.
June 14, 2011 — 11:19 AM
Trisha says:
I’m really fond of strumpet right now. It’s retro, uncommon enough to make people stop for a minute, and can be said in polite (er) company. If I’m especially irritated I’m likely to call people or things a bloody cunt or a rat fucker.
June 14, 2011 — 11:40 AM
W. Smith says:
“Christ on a bike!” is always a favorite, if only because a friend of mine once responded in all seriousness, “where?”
“I don’t give five fucks and a bottle of wine,” seems to come out of my mouth a lot too, though I have absolutely no idea where it came from.
June 14, 2011 — 12:33 PM
Julia says:
“Tits” as an exclamation of surprise.
June 14, 2011 — 1:31 PM
Sarah says:
I like “cock holster” as in, “Shut your cock holster–you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The sheer, unabashed obscenity of using “cock holster” instead of “pie hole,” “filthy sewer,” “suck,” or “mouth” is delightful. When you use this term, you are not fucking around. Beautiful.
June 14, 2011 — 1:32 PM
Fox says:
GoddamotherfuckingshitFUCK. Yes. My favorite, because of two things: The length is nice, especially for when you hit your head really hard, or when some one does something to piss you off. The other thing is that it is so versatile.
June 14, 2011 — 2:53 PM
Jennifer "The Heathen" Monroe says:
I think spomenka should win all ten books. I shall add “slattern” to my conversation now, daily. I might even become a lesbian in order to use it more often.
June 14, 2011 — 2:57 PM
LBates says:
“Dickwad”. Don’t know why. I’ve just started using it lately, exclusively when I’m driving, i.e. “Look at that dickwad driving down the median” or (yelling out the window) “You can’t make a u-turn here, dickwad!”.
June 14, 2011 — 3:34 PM