Basic Trope: A character swears and either they don't normally swear or the work they're in doesn't usually have swearing in it.
- Straight:
- Alice says "damn", despite the work she appears in being mostly kid-friendly.
- Alice says "fuck", despite her usually not being much of a swearer.
- Exaggerated:
- Alice yells a certain racial slur in the middle of a work that's made for toddlers.
- Alice shouts out an Atomic F-Bomb despite normally being a very mild-mannered woman who doesn't even insult.
- Alice says a Cluster F-Bomb despite her work not normally having swearing or herself not normally swearing.
- Downplayed:
- While the work does have a few dirty jokes, no swears were in it despite Alice's one.
- While Alice doesn't normally swear, she is a bit uncouth so swearing wouldn't strictly be out-of-character for her.
- Alice doesn't swear exactly, but she does say a Gosh Dang It to Heck!-type phrase when she usually never exclaims or the work has no exclamations.
- Alice usually resorts to Gosh Dang It to Heck! when upset, surprised or concerned. But this time around, she uses an actual curse word to emphasize how serious the situation is.
- Justified:
- Alice's normally saint-like patience has been pushed far beyond its limits, and she is in absolutely no mood to watch her language.
- Swearing loses its cathartic effect when used too often; Alice saves her cursing for when something terrible happens.
- Inverted:
- On a work where everyone swears all the time, Alice says a sentence without swearing.
- Alice, who usually swears all the time and drops Cluster F Bombs like they're going out of style, is so shocked by something that she stops swearing.
- Subverted:
- Alice says, "Oh, fu—" but then it turns out she was going to say "fudge".
- Alice starts her swear but is interrupted by Bob.
- Alice starts her swear but is killed before she can finish.
- Double Subverted:
- She then swears afterward.
- Bob then says "shit" despite not normally swearing.
- She is then resurrected and finishes her swear.
- Parodied:
- There's No Fourth Wall and Alice says "This work isn't meant to have any swearing, but I'll swear anyway!" and shouts an Atomic F-Bomb.
- Alice says, "I don't normally swear, but I'll swear now to prove I can." before swearing.
- Zig-Zagged: In a work with normally no swearing, Alice says "Oh, fu—dge", then Bob says "Holy shi—" but is interrupted by Charlie who says "Son of a bi—" but then he gets knocked out and when he wakes up, he finishes his sentence.
- Averted:
- The work normally has everyone swear.
- Nobody swears.
- Enforced:
- The creator wanted Alice to swear to Avoid the Dreaded G Rating.
- Alice is possessed by demons, and they wanted her to swear because O.O.C. Is Serious Business.
- The creator is allowed to use very limited profanity, so they have to make it count.
- Something has to show how FUBAR the situation is, what better then to have Next-door Angel Alice curse about it?
- Lampshaded: "Gee whiz, Alice, you don't normally swear!"
- Invoked: Bob tries to make Alice swear.
- Exploited: Alice makes a point of avoiding curse words precisely to strengthen her impact when they need her words taken seriously.
- Defied:
- Alice refuses to swear.
- Alice makes a deliberate point of not sparing the curse words.
- Discussed:
- "We don't normally swear, but what if one of us suddenly did?"
- "Imagine if Alice swore!"
- Conversed:
- "That's got to be the only profanity in the whole work."
- "Why did Alice, the most clean-mouthed character in the work, swear?"
- "If it's so bad that it makes even Alice swear, then it's definitely serious."
- Implied: Alice, who doesn't normally swear, says "Oh, fu—" but it cuts to the next scene.
- Deconstructed: Alice's friends begin to turn against her for swearing because it breaks their rules of not swearing.
- Reconstructed: Alice successfully convinces her friend to remove the rule, and they begin swearing more (though not so much as to make it a Cluster F-Bomb so that the impact of the swear is retained).
- Played for Laughs:
- Alice says an Atomic F-Bomb as she's driven to boredom by sitting inside the "It's A Small World" ride.
- This trope has a chance of being funny regardless of the scene's context if the audience thinks it was inappropriately used.
- Alice is a Shrinking Violet. Bob pays her five bucks to hear her say "motherfucker" for yuks.
- Played for Drama: Alice's curse is due to her having an Oh, Crap! moment.
- Played for Horror:
- Alice's F-bomb dropping is instant proof that she is undergoing Demonic Possession.
- Alice says a very despairing "oh, fuck…" when she figures out that she is stuck in a Cruel Twist Ending.
Back to Precision F-Strike, you motherfucking asshole.
