I agree, as a non-American this thing is really weird, what's even weirder is that people can't even say the word. It reminds me of Harry Potter and how they call Voldermort as "the one who cannot be named" or something similar. This is really interesting as I don't think I've heard of another culture where some words are avoided in this way, by literally beeping the word in real life. I guess beeping is a big thing in the US after all.
