You broomhead, you flamin’ galah. Ah, smeg! Fork, frak! In TV world where you often can’t say “fuck” on family-friendly shows (unless you’re HBO), writers need to be creative when it comes to their characters swearing. Give these curse words a whirl in your daily life to add more variety to your vocabulary and keep people on their toes.

BROOMHEAD – DEGRASSI JUNIOR HIGH (1987–1989) As a child of the ’80s, my first exposure to TV’s non-swears came from a show that provided all my formative education: Degrassi Junior High. No, not the one with Drake in a wheelchair, but the OG version, in which there was no wardrobe budget and they hired realistic-looking teens to fling the words “You broomhead!” at each other. Such was the frequency of the broomhead insult that I grew up thinking this was a genuine Canadian expression (spoiler: it’s not). While the ’80s show broke new ground in tackling tough topics rarely covered in children’s television – teen pregnancy, suicide, abuse, domestic violence, HIV and substance abuse – clearly the classifications board found swearing that step too far in the Degrassi universe.

RACK OFF – HEARTBREAK HIGH (1994–1999) Unlike its Canadian cousin, Aussie high school drama Heartbreak High went with a real-life insult rather than a made-up one – but as a teen in the ’90s, I can attest that we went with harsher slurs than “rack off” when no cameras were around. It does feel very satisfying to roll this off the tongue though, with the phonetic harshness of a stronger insult paired with a distinctly Aussie flavour. So bountiful were the rack-offs in Heartbreak High that some champ made an “Every ‘Rack Off’ in Heartbreak High” YouTube vid – there are 40 in total; I counted. While “rack off” did make an appearance in the recent Netflix reboot of the show, sadly it didn’t get as much airtime as it truly deserved.

FLAMIN’ GALAH – HOME AND AWAY (1988–) There’s no beating around the bush with Alf Stewart (Ray Meagher), Home and Away’s resident grump. And given a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, a “flamin’ galah” must be worth three in Summer Bay. True to his suffer-no-fools approach, Alf deems anyone of annoyance to be a flamin’ galah (and on occasion, a flamin’ mongrel, or a flamin’ yahoo). Given his other catchcry is “Stone the flamin’ crows!”, Alf clearly fixates on local birdlife and fire, which could indeed be an intriguing future plot. Maybe Alf needs to courageously charge through bushfire, as a galah triumphantly emerges from the flames, like a phoenix rising from the ashes. Would be so meta.

SMEG – RED DWARF (1988–1999) There’s something about the word “smeg” that sounds innately off-putting, so those inhabitants of the spacecraft Red Dwarf were onto something when they uttered this one as a sign of annoyance. In real life, smegma is the word for a cheesy-looking secretion that can collect around the genital area, so no doubt Red Dwarf’s creators giggled themselves silly as they decide to go with smeg as their chosen curse word. The sci-fi show had an epic run, spanning 12 seasons (and a more recent reboot), which gave the opportunity to expand smeg to “smeghead,” “smegger” and “Smegging hell.” Not all characters got to bandy these about – mechanoids (androids) were programmed to not be able to swear, so the closest Kryten (Robert Llewellyn) got was “Smeee heee,” which we can all agree is nowhere near as satisfying.

FRAK – BATTLESTAR GALACTICA (1978–1979) This one doesn’t get points for originality, because let’s face it, “frak” is just fuck lite. It’s also used in the same context – “What the frak?”, “Frak you!”, etc. While frak was sometimes said by characters in episodes of the ’70s sci-fi series (spelling trivia alert: it was originally spelled “frack”, before dropping the c in later seasons), it took on new gusto when Battlestar Galactica was reprised in the mid-’00s. Some fans were annoyed by this sudden overuse of frak and took to Reddit to decry how unrealistic the dialogue was. They somehow forgot this was also a show about spaceships and faster-than-light travel, so realism wasn’t needed.

FORK – THE GOOD PLACE (2016–2020) The Good Place, which ran for four seasons, is also the place for a bountiful array of non-swears, thanks to a plot that takes place in a moralistic afterlife where swearing is made impossible. Potty-mouthed main character Eleanor (Kristen Bell) tries, but all that comes out are words like shirt, bench, ash, ash-hole, deck and cork, which stand for things you can definitely figure out. My favourite is fork. While it sits in the same not-wildly-imaginative category as frak, there’s something amusing about hearing that “somebody royally forked up.”

BISCUITS – BLUEY (2018–) This one is frankly adorable, even for the hundredth time my four-year-old says it in a week. A favourite of the Heeler family in Bluey, particularly affable dad Bandit (David McCormack), this non-swear is the go-to for any feelings of frustration or exasperation. The inflection is important for this one – imagine a dejected little fist swing as you decry “Oh, biscuits!” and you’re getting the tone right. The choice of this word also lends itself to the Bluey merchandising universe’s expansion into the biscuit world, making it very hard to say no to Bluey-branded biscuits in the supermarket aisle. Is it all a marketing ploy? Maybe, but I still prefer my little one exclaiming “biscuits” rather than “frak”.

This rad story comes straight out of issue 133. Nab a copy for yourself from the frankie shop or visit one of our lovely stockists. For future issues, subscribe here.