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A minced oath, also known as a pseudo-profanity, is an expression based on a profanity that has been altered to reduce or remove the disagreeable or objectionable characteristics of the original expression; for example, "darn" or "dang" instead of "damn", "heck" instead of "hell", "frig" instead of "fuck", or "golblimey" instead of "God blame me!" Nearly all profanities have minced variants.^[1]

Formation

The most common methods of forming a minced oath are rhyme and alliteration. Thus the word bloody can become blooming, bleeding, or ruddy.^[1] Alliterative minced oaths such as darn for damn allow a speaker to begin to say the prohibited word and then change to a more acceptable expression.^[2] In Cockney rhyming slang, rhyming euphemisms are sometimes truncated so that the rhyme is eliminated: prick became Hampton Wick and then simply Hampton. (The phrase flashing his Hampton, in turn, led to the use of the word flasher for an exhibitionist.)^[3] Alliteration can be combined with metrical equivalence, as in "Judas Priest," substituted for blasphemous use of "Jesus Christ"[1]

Minced oaths can also be formed by shortening: b for bloody, or bitch, eff for fuck.^[1] Sometimes words borrowed from other languages become minced oaths; for example, poppycock comes from the Low Dutch pappe kak, meaning "soft dung".^[3] The minced oath blank is an ironic reference to the dashes that are sometimes used to replace profanities in print.^[4] It goes back at least to 1854, when Cuthbert Bede wrote "I wouldn't give a blank for such a blank blank. I'm blank, if he doesn't look as if he'd swallowed a blank codfish." By the 1880s, it had given rise to the derived forms blanked and blankety.^[5] In the same way, bleep arose from the use of a tone to mask profanities on radio.^[4]

Adjectival probably first became current around 1910, though in 1851 Charles Dickens wrote:

Bark's parts of speech are of an awful sort—principally adjectives. I won't, says Bark, have no adjective police and adjective strangers in my adjective premises! I won't, by adjective and substantive! [...] Give me, says Bark, my adjective trousers!^[6]

History

The Cretan king Rhadamanthus is said to have forbidden his subjects to swear by the gods, suggesting that they swear instead by the ram, the goose or the plane tree. Socrates favored the "Rhadamanthine" oath "by the dog". Aristophanes mentions that people used to swear by birds instead of by the gods, adding that the soothsayer Lampon still swears by the goose "whenever he's going to cheat you".^[7] Since no god was called upon, Lampon may have considered this oath safe to break.^[8]

The use of minced oaths in English dates back at least to the 14th century, when "gog" and "kokk", both euphemisms for God, were in use. Other early minced oaths include "Gis" or "Jis" for Jesus (1528).^[9]

Late Elizabethan drama contains a profusion of minced oaths, probably due to Puritan opposition to swearing. Seven new minced oaths are first recorded between 1598 and 1602, including 'sblood for God's blood from Shakespeare, 'slight for God's light from Ben Jonson, and 'snails for God's nails from the historian John Hayward. Swearing on stage was officially banned by the Act to Restraine Abuses of Players in 1606, and a general ban on swearing followed in 1623. In some cases the original meanings of these minced oaths were forgotten; 'struth (God's truth) came to be spelled 'strewth and zounds changed pronunciation so that it no longer sounded like God's wounds.^[10] Other examples from this period include 'slid for "God's eyelid" (1598) and sfoot for "God's foot" (1602). Gadzooks for "God's hooks" (the nails on Christ's cross) followed in the 1650s, egad for oh God in the late 1600s^[11], and odsbodikins for "God's little body" in 1709.^[12]

Acceptability

Although minced oaths are not as strong as the expressions from which they derive, some still find them offensive. One writer in 1550 considered "idle oaths" like "by cocke" (by God), "by the cross of the mouse foot", and "by Saint Chicken" to be "most abominable blasphemy".^[13] The minced oaths "'sblood" and "zounds" were omitted from the Folio edition of Shakespeare's play Othello, probably due to Puritan-influenced censorship.^[14] In 1941 a U.S. federal judge threatened a lawyer with contempt of court for using the word "darn".^[15] Zounds may sound amusing and archaic to the modern ear,^[16] yet as late as 1984 a writer recalled that "some years ago", after using it in print, he had received complaints that it was blasphemous because of its origin as "God's wounds".^[17] Bart Simpson from The Simpsons introduced to American audiences the minced oath, "¡Ay, caramba!" (pronounced [ˈai | ka.ˈɾam.ba]) from the Spanish interjection ¡ay! (denoting surprise or pain) and caramba (euphemism for carajo/penis). This exclamation also appears in the Disney film The Three Caballeros, in which even the Spanish-speaking characters state that they do not know what it means.

Minced oaths in fiction

Writers of fiction sometimes face the problem of portraying characters who swear without offending audiences or incurring censorship. Somerset Maugham directly referred to this problem in his 1919 novel The Moon and Sixpence, where he admitted:

Strickland, according to Captain Nichols, did not use exactly the words I have given, but since this book is meant for family reading, I thought it better -- at the expense of truth -- to put into his mouth language familiar to the domestic circle.^[18]

In particular, authors of children's fiction sometimes put minced oaths into the mouths of characters who swear a lot, as a way of depicting a part of their behaviour that it would be unconvincing not to represent, but also avoiding the use of swear words which would be considered unsuitable for children to read. In some cases, minced oaths are used which it seems very unlikely people would actually use in real life; examples include^{[citation needed]} "blessed", "By Jove", "golly" or "gosh", "gee", "dagnabit" and "goldarn it". Captain Haddock, from the Tintin comic books, swears somewhat unlike a real sailor with sesquipedalian ejaculations like "billions of blistering blue barnacles" and "thundering typhoons". Napoleon Dynamite, in the film of the same name, which is rated PG, uses minced oaths to a particularly comical effect. The lead characters of Anthony Crowley (a demon) and Aziraphale (an angel) from Good Omens, by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, both use minced oaths on a number of occasions, though for different reasons (Aziraphale genuinely means to avoid offense, while Crowley, being a demon, simply finds it more acceptable to his post to say 'gosh' instead of 'God').

Norman Mailer's novel The Naked and the Dead uses "fug" in place of "fuck" throughout, and in the 1945 war film A Walk in the Sun, the screenplay substitutes "loving" for "fucking" (the universal American soldier's descriptor).

In the Father Ted episode The Old Grey Whistle Theft, Ted's picnic at the local picnic area is disturbed by people claiming that he is in their "fupping spot". The woman yells out "Fup off, ya grasshole" and when Ted asks them why they are talking like that, the man points to a list of picnic area rules, one of which is "No Swearing". The man finishes by yelling out "Fup off, ya pedrophile."

In both incarnations of the television series Battlestar Galactica, characters use the word 'frack (original)/frak (re-imagined)' in place of 'fuck'. Characters in the original series also use 'felgercarb' in place of 'shit'.

In the TV series Farscape the characters use the word 'frell' in stead of 'fuck'. (As in 'What the frell is going?') and the word 'dren' instead of 'shit'.

In the 1984 film Johnny Dangerously, the character Roman Maronie is known for butchering the English language, especially English vulgarities:

You fargin' sneaky bastages! (You fucking sneaky bastards!)
Don't bullstye me! (Don't bullshit me!)
You lousy corksuckers. (You lousy cocksuckers.)
Dirty son-a-ma-batches. (Dirty son-of-a-bitch.)
I'm gonna shove 'em up your icehole. (I'm gonna shove 'em up your asshole.)

In the TV series "Firefly" characters characters often use the word "gorram" in place of "goddam" or "god damned." Additionally, the characters do much of their cursing in Mandarin Chinese. This keeps the show unobjectionable enough to air on network television, yet at the same time maintain a realistic level of profanity for a show about space criminals.

Other instances

Online, alternative typographical glyphs are sometimes used to evade profanity filters (such as $hit instead of shit, @ss or @rse instead of ass or arse).^{[citation needed]} "fsck", from "filesystem check", is commonly used on Usenet and in other technology-related circles to replace "fuck".^[19] The Fark website replaces words like "fuck" with "fark" and "nigger" with "attractive and successful African-American." On the Something Awful forums, filters replace "fuck" with the phrase "gently caress" and "shit" with "poo-poo" for unregistered users.

In some rare cases, this makes matters worse. For example, ProBoards forums replace the word "cock" with "thingy", thereby transforming the statement "cock his shotgun" into "thingy his shotgun". See also Scunthorpe Problem.

The term dork (from Yiddish^{[citation needed]}) is believed to have been coined as an alternative to "dick" which was coined as a vulgar term for a penis. In current popular usage, the term does not particularly have vulgar connotations as it is frequently used to describe an eccentric or quirky person, an accepted synonym for geek or nerd. In previous decades, the term "dick" was used in this fashion as well, but it currently rather refers to a person (usually male) who is perceived as obnoxious or arrogant, a more profane synonym for jerk.

Notes

^ ^a ^b ^c Hughes, 12.
^ Hughes, 7.
^ ^a ^b Hughes, 16-17.
^ ^a ^b Hughes, 18-19.
^ Oxford English Dictionary, entry for blank, definition 12b.
^ Charles, Dickens (1851). "On Duty with Inspector Field" (PDF). Household Words: 151–152. Retrieved 2007-12-19.
^ Echols, Edward C. (1951). "The Art of Classical Swearing". The Classical Journal. 46 (6): 291–298. Retrieved 2007-02-15.
^ Dillon, Matthew (1995). "By Gods, Tongues, and Dogs: The Use of Oaths in Aristophanic Comedy". Greece & Rome, 2nd Ser. 42 (2): 135–151. Retrieved 2007-02-15.
^ Hughes, 13-15.
^ Hughes, 103-105.
^ va=egad - Definition from the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary
^ Hughes, 13.
^ Lund, J.M. (2002). "The Ordeal of Zeal-of-the-Land Busy: The Conflict Over Profane Swearing and the Puritan Culture of Discipline". Journal of American & Comparative Cultures. 25 (3/4): 260–269. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
^ Kermode, Frank (2001). Shakespeare's Language. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. p. 166. ISBN 0-374-52774-1. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
^ Montagu, Ashely (2001). The Anatomy of Swearing. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 298. 0-812-21764-0.
^ Leland, Christopher T. (2002). Creative Writer's Style Guide: Rules and Advice for Writing Fiction and Creative Nonfiction. Cincinnati, OH: Writer's Digest Books. p. 207. ISBN 1-884-91055-6.
^ Kilpatrick, James J. (1984). The Writer's Art. Fairway, Kansas: Andrews McNeel Publishing. p. 83. ISBN 0-836-27925-5.
^ Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence, ch. 47; quoted in Hughes, 187.
^ fscking

References

Dickens, Charles (1999). Reprinted Pieces by Charles Dickens (PDF). Hazelton, PA: Pennsylvania State University. p. 150. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
Hughes, Geoffrey (1991). Swearing: A Social History of Foul Language, Oaths and Profanity in English. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-16593-2.
Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. (CD-ROM) (1994).

@@ Line 42: / Line 42: @@
 [[Napoleon Dynamite]], in the film of the same name, which is rated PG, uses minced oaths to a particularly comical effect. The lead characters of [[Anthony Crowley]] (a demon) and [[Aziraphale]] (an angel) from [[Good Omens]], by [[Terry Pratchett]] and [[Neil Gaiman]], both use minced oaths on a number of occasions, though for different reasons (Aziraphale genuinely means to avoid offense, while Crowley, being a demon, simply finds it more acceptable to his post to say 'gosh' instead of 'God').
-[[Norman Mailer]]'s novel ''[[The Naked and the Dead]]'' uses "fug" in place of "fuck" throughout.
+[[Norman Mailer]]'s novel ''[[The Naked and the Dead]]'' uses "fug" in place of "fuck" throughout, and in the [[1945]] [[war film]] ''[[A Walk in the Sun]]'', the screenplay substitutes "loving" for "fucking" (the universal American soldier's descriptor).
 In the ''[[Father Ted]]'' episode ''[[The Old Grey Whistle Theft]]'', Ted's picnic at the local picnic area is disturbed by people claiming that he is in their "fupping spot". The woman yells out "Fup off, ya grasshole" and when Ted asks them why they are talking like that, the man points to a list of picnic area rules, one of which is "No Swearing". The man finishes by yelling out "Fup off, ya pedrophile."