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Why is GW so afraid of cursing? They have fully literate English speaking Mushrooms, but no on ever drops a GD or a F bomb? I mean, they even created there own fake curse words. How is that better? Lets describe in vivid detail this man's skin being peeled off his muscles, or this man being tortured by the warp, but if a Space Marine were to yell F(*&! in the heat of combat, that's crossing a line? I almost spit out my water when I was listening to Avenging Son and one of the Characters in the Audio book yelled S^&* after nearly being shot. I was like, never heard that from GW before. Are they starting to push the envelope or are we in line for 20 more years of different variations on "Gak"?

It’s worked for battle star galactica

Let me just say as a german the whole concept of censoring curses seems extremely strange to me and it always amuses me when there are curses censored in media or when I see dakkas language filter.

It might just be part of their general policies to try and encourage a younger generation of gamers and customers. It's much easier to do when people at the shop aren't shouting swearwords as they quote their heroes from books and such.

Age ratings are also a thing and by not having swearing it lets them have products that fit the setting without age being a potential factor.


Another might just be that whoever came up with the core lore and stories decided that swearing in the 41st millennium would be different from today.

I’m fairly sure I’ve come across all the curse words in Black Library novels at one point or another.

because modern swears likely are no longer in use. For a word to become a curse word, it must have the potential to offend (this BTW means swears differ across cultures). thus swears will reflect the culture. the F word has long been a course term used for sexual intercourse and has always been intended as offensive, but it really became offense due to well.. views on sex.
Some words that have been swears in the past no longer are considered swears, such as during the 17th century when Linnage etc was considered important, Bastard was considered a horriable word and was often censored, written as B-d.
likewise there was a time when yelling "GOD DAMNIT!"
if you hit your finger with a hammer would have caused a real stir.

Chances are swears in 40k have evolved as well to reflect the culture, each planet likely has it's own swears and there are proably a few common ones. I'd not be suprised if "Horus" is an outright swear word in the Imperial.

likewise there are proably a lot of swears invoking the name of the emperor and his saints.

but the idea that the F word has lasted 40k years is just silly

Some authors take liberties with what constitutes swearing and depending on the book it will wildly vary. Certain B-words are veeeery widespread and used by lots of authors and I think I read one book that substituted the F-word for "fug" which is exactly the same if said aloud and in a shouty voice.
As others have said, it's so they can keep the age range down on products so it's a-ok for kids to buy.

Ok, but again. For a parent, which would you rather Billy be exposed to. Chitinous bug man who literally eats another man, then is flayed alive by inquisitor, and dissected by a different inquisitor, or a good ol fashioned DUCK YOU?

It's like when that mothers against violence group was all up in arms about Mortal Kombat being too offensive, but lets their kid Diablo which is way worse.

The proper grim-dark stuff is pretty rare though, most of BL stuff is bang bang shoot the baddies kind of deal.

40k isn't Grim Dark any more. Judge Dredd is grim dark. 40k is Gothic Space Fantasy I feel. Even in the books the good guys pretty much always win. For it to be grim dark there has to be a trade off in morality I feel. We saved the captive soldiers but we had to use the orphans as grenades! sorta thing.

If 40k was authentic non-fantasy, Abadon wouldn't have failed 13 times, and all the good guys wouldn't always survive/be rez'd by magic.

mrFickle wrote:It’s worked for battle star galactica

That's a bold statement...

As a connoisseur of vulgarity and verbose verbage, it really slaps my salmon that mother lovers refuse to bob on it.


But yes I'm surprised there isn't more expressions of language in 40k.

Swearing doesn't make for particularly good writing, especially if it's overused. If a book contains the word "feth" 500 times, the reader will realize that it's more punctuation than swearing. If it's in the book exactly once, it can actually have impact. But most of the time it doesn't add anything to the story so what's the point?

At least silly in-universe swearing is immersive, so there's that.

Isn't "feth" the 40k word for feth (which the board's censor will also change to feth... fething censors! ).

Who knows. Apparently, Feth was a spirit believed to have inhabited the Nalnwood trees on Tanith and the Tanith Guardsmen used it much in the same way people use "for God's/Christ's sake" but also as a replacement for pretty much any other swear word they want. Even the Verghast word "gak" seems to be inserted at random i.e. "Gakhead" or "Gak you Tanith".

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
40k isn't Grim Dark any more. Judge Dredd is grim dark. 40k is Gothic Space Fantasy I feel. Even in the books the good guys pretty much always win. For it to be grim dark there has to be a trade off in morality I feel. We saved the captive soldiers but we had to use the orphans as grenades! sorta thing.

40k was always space fantasy. And they make that sort of 'moral trade' a LOT. To the point that it loses its impact.

If 40k was authentic non-fantasy, Abadon wouldn't have failed 13 times, and all the good guys wouldn't always survive/be rez'd by magic.

'Authentic non-fantasy' is gibberish, even if was a goal.
But Abaddon notably didn't fail. That's just a dumb meme.

 Gert wrote:
Who knows. Apparently, Feth was a spirit believed to have inhabited the Nalnwood trees on Tanith and the Tanith Guardsmen used it much in the same way people use "for God's/Christ's sake" but also as a replacement for pretty much any other swear word they want. Even the Verghast word "gak" seems to be inserted at random i.e. "Gakhead" or "Gak you Tanith".

I can't believe I forgot about Gak! I always through that was the F word, and Feth was the S word. It seemed to fit in the style they were using it. But the point is, for a curse to be effective, it has to have IMPACT. If I drop an F bomb on a ship of sailors, they think I fit in. If I drop a GD in a catholic Church on Sunday it can cause pain. The way the writers use Feth and Gak are like far too much, it's written like a 14 year old just got permission to use it. As for the Gaunt Books, it's so prevelent some characters use it almost every other word. Whereas in Avengin Son, when the character gave the actual curse word, it shocked me because it was so out of place and impactful. If Gaunt were to drop a "Get out of my F'ing way" to a chaos cultist before cutting him down, it would have weight.

Anyway, asked and answered I guess. GW doesn't know how to curse yet, or they are angsty teens whos parents forbid cursing, and are getting it all out now. Given the state of the rules, I may be onto something.

It's not so much that GW doesn't know how to curse yet.

It's that 40k is twenty five years old, dating back to when it was well established tradition for science fiction to have "Not The English Swear Words" swear words.

And then twenty five years later, you might as well ask "Why do they insist on calling the weapon a 'lasgun' instead of a laser rifle or laser pistol?"

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
Let me just say as a german the whole concept of censoring curses seems extremely strange to me and it always amuses me when there are curses censored in media or when I see dakkas language filter.

I've started (and by started I mean I've been doing it for about a decade) using dakkas filtered curses in real life. Not as a substitute, but in addition to the actual words.

 solkan wrote:
It's not so much that GW doesn't know how to curse yet.

It's that 40k is twenty five years old, dating back to when it was well established tradition for science fiction to have "Not The English Swear Words" swear words.

And then twenty five years later, you might as well ask "Why do they insist on calling the weapon a 'lasgun' instead of a laser rifle or laser pistol?"

I mean hotshot lasguns used to be called hellrifles, and I kinda wish they'd kept that.

It's the same reason they can have such levels of over-the-top violence and gore but can't have humans, even loving couples, have sex. It makes it harder to market, and it can increase the settings age rating.

They can just label it as fantasy violence and get a lower rating.

Think of it this way. You can have a PG movie where the protagonist is gunning down dozens of people, as long as no blood is shown kids are free to watch it. The moment you start swearing or add nudity it goes straight up to an M rating.

 Grimskul wrote:

 solkan wrote:
It's not so much that GW doesn't know how to curse yet.

It's that 40k is twenty five years old, dating back to when it was well established tradition for science fiction to have "Not The English Swear Words" swear words.

And then twenty five years later, you might as well ask "Why do they insist on calling the weapon a 'lasgun' instead of a laser rifle or laser pistol?"

I mean hotshot lasguns used to be called hellrifles, and I kinda wish they'd kept that.

Technically they were called hot shot lasguns in 2nd ed and original necromunda.

3rd ed changed them to hellguns and then scions changed them back to hotshot.


Modern western morality has evolved from puritan prudishness. So the status quo still allows for violence, but balks at swearing and sex.

GW is trying to maximise their audience with a challenging IP so they're making sure they skirt the conventional issues as much as possible

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:


Anyway, asked and answered I guess. GW doesn't know how to curse yet, or they are angsty teens whos parents forbid cursing, and are getting it all out now. Given the state of the rules, I may be onto something.

Or they're adults who grew past the idea that 'cursing' has shock value (or any value for its own sake) several decades ago.
Gaunt dropping 'F-bombs' would just be anachronistic and disruptive the attempt at a narrative.


But mostly, its as hellebore says. Swear words are a known issue to the intended market (or at least parents thereof). It'd be a pointless addition to rile up opposition and negative attention.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Isn't "feth" the 40k word for feth (which the board's censor will also change to feth... fething censors! ).

Only in some of the books. In the Ciaphas Cain books, it’s “frak”. I know I’ve come across the original f word in at least one BL book…maybe by ADB?

Language is a funny thing. Mutable, innit. It changes over time.

The F-bomb being bad comes out of mostly christian puritan prudishness.
There are words that were in common use 400 years ago that have fallen by the wayside in the meantime.
I very much doubt that any common contemporary curse would still be in use, 38,000 years hence.

Also words shift in meaning within generations, within regions, within population groups and such.

The word "Gay" used to mean happy;

Then it became a term to refer to homosexuals (where I believe, though correct me if I'm wrong, it has been used both as a slur initially and then more of just a description later);

Then I recall a phase when I was at school where it was used to deride things. "that lesson was so gay" etc... This doesn't seem to have stuck nor been vastly widespread.



And that's just one single word. Language, despite the best efforts of dictionaries, is a constantly mutating and evolving thing. Likely because the vast number of people who use it every day, do so in a casual sense. As long as what they mean to say gets across that's good enough. Until you're writing forma documents and such; though even there there's divisions. Scientific writing is very exact, but slightly different to legal writing, which is again very exact.

The thing with cursing is that it all expresses the same thing. Usually anger.

So whether you use the most obscene and impolite curses you can think of; go for middle-of-the-road curses like "bloody!", "damn!" and "hell!"; or go for washed out curses like "darnit!" and (to translate directly from Swedish to English) "seventeen!" "yuk pharaho!" "thousand!" and "sabres!" it still means the same thing with about the same force behind it.

I've always, since very early childhood years, stuck to light curses. That allows me to swear in whatever company I am in without ever having to think before uttering anything. The phrasing doesn't make anyone upset, and it still has the same spoken force of expression as any heavier curses would have had.

It might seem lacklustre in written form, but not when spoken out loud. Once the novelty wears off, it's all about how you say it, not what you say.

GW may, early on, have decided to keep its products more accessible by not needlessly indulging in gross curses. A curse is a curse, at the end of the day.

 Overread wrote:
Also words shift in meaning within generations, within regions, within population groups and such.
.........
Then it became a term to refer to homosexuals (where I believe, though correct me if I'm wrong, it has been used both as a slur initially and then more of just a description later);

I believe it was reclaimed. Gay is probably used in LGBT+ for a couple of reasons both of which you mentioned.

So yes, language, especially for the more expressive terms, changes quite a lot.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Ok, but again. For a parent, which would you rather Billy be exposed to. Chitinous bug man who literally eats another man, then is flayed alive by inquisitor, and dissected by a different inquisitor, or a good ol fashioned DUCK YOU?

It's like when that mothers against violence group was all up in arms about Mortal Kombat being too offensive, but lets their kid Diablo which is way worse.

Children are exposed to people killing each other all the time, Star Wars for example is very violent. Less killing the the marvel DC universe but it’s all about settling scores with your fists.

But you don’t get swearing in those films. Maybe it’s because the actions that take place in books and films aren’t real and won’t occur in the real world, but swearing is in the real world.

Kids struggle with Shakespeare, and that was only 6 centuries ago. In the 41/42 millennia do you think it will resemble anything we would recognise.

Tygre wrote:
Kids struggle with Shakespeare, and that was only 6 centuries ago. In the 41/42 millennia do you think it will resemble anything we would recognise.

Of course not. And that is why so much in 40k is recognizable to us: Language, human phenotypes, aesthetics and so much else is kept deliberately recognizable to modern day people with some historical knowledge. They could have gone wild on a brainstorming spree on just how different people and their manners and styles would be thousands of years into the future, but they have not. As concern baseline humans, GW have by and large stuck to familiar stuff precisely because it would be so different, and only tweaked it a little.

The historical references and the grounding in familiar things is a main strength of Warhammer 40'000. Instead of the Zsy'prytealoon of Czcarouwnipp, you've got the Imperium of Man.