Following my recent post about the euphemism crimanetly, I have heard about many additional expressions/exclamations of irritation from friends and readers. Upon looking up some of these expressions, I learned something new - there is a special category of euphemisms called "minced oaths" which is applied to exclamations.
According to a site called The Phrase Finder, "Minced oaths are a sub-group of euphemisms used to avoid swearing when expressing surprise or annoyance. They are usually, although not exclusively, religious in nature and date from the days when it wasn't acceptable to use the name of God, Jesus or other religious notables in everyday speech. To mince your words, or mince matters, means to choose words so as not to offend anyone."
Wikipedia notes that a minced oath is also sometimes called a pseudo-profanity or an expletive-deletive.
Here are some examples:
Begorrah = By God
Bejabbers = By Jesus
Blimey = Blind me
Blinking heck = Bloody Hell
By George = By God
By golly = By God's body
By gosh = By God
Cheese and Crackers = Jesus Christ
Cor blimey/Gorblimey = God blind me
Crikey/Cripes = Christ
Crivvens = Christ defend us
Dagnabbit/Dangnabbit/Dagnammit = God damn it
Dang/Darn = Damn
Drat = God rot it
Flaming/Flipping heck = Fucking Hell
For crying out loud = For Christ's sake
For Pete's sake = For St. Peter's sake
For the love of Mike = For St. Michael's sake
Freaking/Flipping = fucking
Gadzooks = God's hooks
Good garden party = Good God
Holy spit = Holy shit
Jason Crisp/Jiminy Cricket/Judas Priest = Jesus Christ
Jebus/Jeez/Jehosaphat = Jesus
Jumping Jehosaphat = Jumping Jesus
Land sakes = For the Lord's sake
Lawks a mercy = Lord have mercy
Odds-bodkins = God's sweet body
Sacré bleu = Sang de Dieu (God's blood)
Sam Hill = Hell
Shoot/Shucks = shit
Strewth = God's Truth
Suffering succotash = Suffering Saviour
Tarnation = Damnation
What in Sam Hill? = What in damn Hell?
Zounds = God's wounds
The Phrase Finder site also points out that even though new euphemisms appear on a regular basis, new minced oaths are quite rare and this may be because, "restrictions on swearing out loud when surprised or annoyed have slackened somewhat."
Interesting observation...if you ask me, restrictions hardly exist at all anymore and expletives are more the norm than the exception.
4 comments:
I agree. Most of these euphemisms seem outdated and quaint, because we are now more accustomed to hearing the real thing. Judas Priest!
Nice!
Can't say I've ever heard cheese and crackers, but I have heard of cheese and rice.
My French teacher used to say "Shut the fff–ront door!"
Sugar is quite common here (UK) to avoid saying 'Shit!'. Then there's the old-fashioned 'fiddlesticks', another f-word. The OED tells me that Hoboken is an American euphemism for hell. We used to have Go to Hanover or Go to Halifax (the Yorkshire, England town is meant).
I blogged on euphemisms for hell
here
Post a Comment