10 Shocking Moments Star Trek Used Profanity

With or without an emotion chip fused to your brain, wouldn't you be swearing like a starship trooper if you were hurtling down towards Veridian III in the saucer section?

The android "Oh, s**t" remains one of the most memorable (and eminently quotable) moments in Star Trek: Generations. Until that point, Data couldn't muster up a contraction let alone a curse word. The sudden swear was therefore so gloriously out-of-character that no other could have uttered it to such hilarious effect.

As our own Jack Pooley noted, the synth's startled s-bomb was included in the first place to bump up the film's street cred, and box office saleability, from a G to PG rating in the Motion Picture Association (of America)'s ratings system. It's 1994, we're not having p**s ups around the campfire anymore!

In the US, it is movies with a PG-13 certificate that now take the lion's share of box office revenue with some of the highest grossing films of all time — the likes of Avatar and Avengers: Endgame — being PG-13. Conversely, a Star Trek film rated G would tend to have fans avoiding the cinema.

Naturally, we'd had a few Gallic goes at the word in The Next Generation when Captain Picard got around the TV censors by muttering that gros mot (m**de) in his 'obscure' ancestral language.

There have been a few more direct examples of the s-word since Generations, as well as some creative variations on the theme both before and after. The award for funniest usage goes to Kirk's reply to Dr Gillian Taylor in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home: "No, ma'am. No dips**t." Admiral Picard gets second prize (and *spoiler alert*) for 'best peace offering profanity' to Captain Shaw in Star Trek: Picard season three's No Win Scenario: "despite the fact that you are indeed a dips**t from Chicago." Shaw also gets a knowing nod for his cursing creativity in the episode Seventeen Seconds: "Anyone else want to throw more weird s**t at me?"

Other than the 'dips**ts,' we've had 'bulls**t' in Star Trek: First Contact, 'horses**t' in Star Trek: Beyond, and there was a 's**tstorm' until 's**t hit the fan' in Star Trek: Discovery… to name but a few.