As a German I'm routinely confused by Americans referring to "the $initialLetter-word", especially when it's not obvious from context.

I understand avoiding the "n-word" because of America's still ever-present latent racism, and I can kinda understand avoiding the "f-word" because of a schizophrenic attitude to sex based on Puritan "family values", but I'm still at a loss whenever I see all kinds of other letters of the alphabet pop up now and then with no indication what the speaker is actually trying to refer to.

EDIT: Apparently HN ratelimits me whenever I get downvoted. Yay for passive aggressive auto-moderation.