Mitt jävla svar: Scheiß- as a prefix is *very* common, it is a bit like fucking, bloody or (in Swedish) jävla. Fahr deine Scheißkarre da weg. Move your bloody car (Karre is pejorative for a car) out of the way. Mist (=manure) is more okay to say than Scheiße. If you drop something and it breaks, it would be acceptable if a "Mist" escapes your mouth even in front of an audience. Though it technically denominates the same thing, it sounds less harsh, so it's a bit like the difference between to fuck and to shag. Things to call someone whose behaviour is decidedly not okay: Arschloch or just Arsch, Wichser (like wanker). Things to call someone who is dumb: (harsh:) Idiot or Trottel, (less harsh:) Depp, Honk or (ironic) Held. Recommended, original swearing: A friend of mine likes to replace verdammt by verdampft (evaporated), which sounds rather cute. Elektroneger denominates a white person with a lot of artificial tan, especially if it doesn't look good on him/her (as is often the case with blondes). Is this word racist? I hope not, because I rather like it... How common is swearing? According to Swede who moved here a long time ago (i.e. my former Swedish teacher), Swedes swear a good deal more than we do. From my own experience I can only say this matches my observations from radio and TV.

Interesting question. :D If you hit your toe on the table-leg most people in Germany would say "verdammt" (damned) or sometimes more rough "scheiße" (shit, fuck). If bad stuff happens we say often words like "so ein Mist" (such a crap) or "so ein Scheiß" but the word "scheiße" you only use with people you know good, it's very rough as I said at the beginning.

Also give the context please :) Makes it easier to understand :)