A minced oath is a euphemistic expression formed by deliberately misspelling, mispronouncing, or replacing a part of a profane, blasphemous, or taboo word or phrase to reduce the original term's objectionable characteristics. An example is "gosh" for "God", [1] or fudge for fuck . [2]
Many languages have such expressions. In the English language, nearly all profanities have minced variants. [3]
Common methods of forming a minced oath are rhyme and alliteration. Thus the word bloody can become blooming , or ruddy . [3] 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. [4] In rhyming slang, rhyming euphemisms are often truncated so that the rhyme is eliminated; prick became Hampton Wick and then simply Hampton. Another well-known example is "cunt" rhyming with "Berkeley Hunt", which was subsequently abbreviated to "berk". Alliteration can be combined with metrical equivalence, as in the pseudo-blasphemous "Judas Priest", substituted for the blasphemous use of "Jesus Christ". [5]
Minced oaths can also be formed by shortening: e.g., b for bloody or f for fuck . [3] Sometimes words borrowed from other languages become minced oaths; for example, poppycock comes from the Dutch pappe kak, meaning 'soft dung'. [6] The minced oath blank is an ironic reference to the dashes that are sometimes used to replace profanities in print. [7] 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, [8] which combined gave the name of the long-running British TV quiz show Blankety Blank . In the same way, bleep arose from the use of a tone to mask profanities on radio. [7]
The Cretan king Rhadamanthus is said to have forbidden his subjects to swear by the gods, suggesting that they instead swear by the ram, the goose or the plane tree. Socrates favored the "Rhadamanthine" oath "by the dog", with "the dog" often interpreted as referring to the bright "Dog Star", i.e., Sirius. 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". [9] Since no god was called upon, Lampon may have considered this oath safe to break. [10]
Michael V. Fox says there are minced oaths in the Bible: the Hebrew words ṣᵉba’ot 'gazelles' and ’aylot haśśadeh 'wild does' (Sg 2:7) are circumlocutions for titles of God, the first for either (’elohey) ṣᵉba’ot '(God of) Hosts' or (YHWH) ṣᵉba’ot '(Yahweh is) Armies' and the second for ’el šadday 'El Shaddai'. [11] The New English Translation footnotes dispute this interpretation of the Hebrew.
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). [12]
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 "By 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 Restrain Abuses of Players in 1606, and a general ban on swearing followed in 1623. [13] Other examples from the 1650s included 'slid for "By God's eyelid" (1598), 'sfoot for "By God's foot" (1602), and gadzooks for "By God's hooks" (referring to the nails on Christ's cross). In the late 17th century, egad meant oh God, [14] and ods bodikins for "By God's bodkins [i.e. nail]s" in 1709. [15]
In some cases the original meanings of these minced oaths were forgotten; the oath 'struth (By God's truth) came to be spelled strewth . The oath Zounds and related Wounds changed pronunciation in the Great Vowel Shift, but the normal word wound did not (at least not in RP), so that they no longer sound like their original meaning of "By God's wounds". [16]
Although minced oaths are not as strong as the expressions from which they derive, some audiences may 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". [17] The minced oaths "'sblood" and "zounds" were omitted from the Folio edition of Shakespeare's play Othello , probably as a result of Puritan-influenced censorship. [18] In 1941, a United States federal judge threatened a lawyer with contempt of court for using the word "darn". [19] Zounds may sound amusing and archaic to the modern ear, [20] yet as late as 1984 the columnist James J. Kilpatrick 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". [21] (He had written an article entitled "Zounds! Is Reagan Mad?" in the Spartanburg Herald for 12 June 1973, [22] and also used "zounds" in June 1970.) [23]
It is common to find minced oaths in literature and media. Writers sometimes face the problem of portraying characters who swear and often include minced oaths instead of profanity in their writing so that they will not offend audiences or incur censorship. One example is The Naked and the Dead , where publishers required author Norman Mailer to use the minced oath "fug" over his objections. [24] Somerset Maugham referred to this problem in his novel The Moon and Sixpence (1919), in which the narrator explained that "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". [25]
J. R. R. Tolkien pretends a similar mincing of profanity in The Lord of the Rings , stating in Appendix F of the novel: "But Orcs and Trolls spoke as they would, without love of words or things; and their language was actually more degraded and filthy than I have shown it. I do not suppose that any will wish for a closer rendering, though models are easy to find." [26]
| By language | |
|---|---|
| Devices | |
| Other | |
A euphemism is an innocuous word or expression used in place of one that is deemed offensive or suggests something unpleasant. Some euphemisms are intended to amuse, while others use bland, inoffensive terms for concepts that the user wishes to downplay. Euphemisms may be used to mask profanity or refer to topics some consider taboo such as mental or physical disability, sexual intercourse, bodily excretions, pain, violence, illness, or death in a polite way.
Profanity involves the use of notionally offensive words for a variety of purposes, including to demonstrate disrespect or negativity, to relieve pain, to express a strong emotion, as a grammatical intensifier or emphasis, or to express informality or conversational intimacy. In many formal or polite social situations, it is considered impolite, and in some religious groups it is considered a sin. Profanity includes slurs, but there are many insults that do not use swear words.
Damnation is the concept of divine punishment and torment in an afterlife for actions that were committed, or in some cases, not committed on Earth.
Quebec French profanities, known as sacres, are words and expressions related to Catholicism and its liturgy that are used as strong profanities in Quebec French and in Acadian French. Sacres are considered stronger in Québec than the foul expressions common to other varieties of French, which centre on sex and excrement.
Bloody, as an adjective or adverb, is an expletive attributive commonly used in British English, Irish English, and Australian English; it is also present in Canadian English, Indian English, Malaysian/Singaporean English, South African English, and a number of other Commonwealth of nations. It has been used as an intensive since at least the 1670s. Considered respectable until about 1750, it was heavily tabooed during c. 1750–1920, considered equivalent to heavily obscene or profane speech. Public use continued to be seen as controversial until the 1960s, but the word has since become a comparatively mild expletive or intensifier.
Diu is a common profanity in Cantonese. It can be regarded as the Cantonese equivalent of the English fuck.
Les goddams is an obsolete ethnic slur historically used by the French to refer to the English, based on their frequent expletives. The name originated during the Hundred Years War (1337–1453) between England and France, when English soldiers were notorious among the French for their frequent use of profanity and in particular the interjection "God damn". A more contemporary ethnic slur nowadays is "Les Rosbiff" from the Roast Beef.
A wordfilter is a script typically used on Internet forums or chat rooms that automatically scans users' posts or comments as they are submitted and automatically changes or censors particular words or phrases.
Profanity in Finnish is used in the form of intensifiers, adjectives, adverbs and particles. There is also an aggressive mood that involves omission of the negative verb ei while implying its meaning with a swear word.
Sam Hill is an American English slang phrase, a euphemism or minced oath for "the devil" or "hell" personified. Etymologist Michael Quinion and others date the expression back to the late 1830s; they and others consider the expression to have been a simple bowdlerization, with, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, an unknown origin.
Sacrebleu or sacre bleu is a French profanity used as a cry of surprise, irritation or displeasure. It is a minced oath form of the profane sacré Dieu, which, by some religions, is considered profane, due to one of the Ten Commandments in the Bible, which reads "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain."
Italian profanity are profanities that are blasphemous or inflammatory in the Italian language.
The five most common Cantonese profanities, vulgar words in the Cantonese language are diu (屌/𨳒), gau (鳩/㞗/𨳊), lan (撚/𨶙), tsat (柒/杘/𨳍) and hai (屄/閪), where the first ("diu") literally means fuck, "hai" is a word for female genitalia and "gau" refers to male genitalia. They are sometimes collectively known as the "outstanding five in Cantonese" (廣東話一門五傑). These five words are generally offensive and give rise to a variety of euphemisms and minced oaths. Similar to the seven dirty words in the United States, these five words are forbidden to say and are bleep-censored on Hong Kong broadcast television. Other curse phrases, such as puk gai (仆街/踣街) and ham gaa caan (冚家鏟/咸家鏟), are also common.
The following is a list of words and formulations commonly used as profanity throughout Romania.
Like natural languages, the constructed language Esperanto contains profane words and indecent vocabulary. Some of this was formulated out of the established core vocabulary, or by giving specific profane or indecent senses to regularly formed Esperanto words. Other instances represent informal neologisms that remain technically outside the defined vocabulary of the language, but have become established by usage.
Profanity in science fiction (SF) shares all of the issues of profanity in fiction in general, but has several unique aspects of its own, including the use of alien profanities.
It is common to find minced oaths in literature and media. Writers often include minced oaths instead of profanity in their writing, to avoid offending their audience or incurring censorship.
Tagalog profanity can refer to a wide range of offensive, blasphemous, and taboo words or expressions in the Tagalog language of the Philippines. Due to Filipino culture, expressions which may sound benign when translated back to English can cause great offense; while some expressions English speakers might take great offense to can sound benign to a Tagalog speaker. Filipino, the national language of the Philippines, is the standard register of Tagalog, so as such the terms Filipino profanity and Filipino swear words are sometimes also employed.
Prick is a vulgar word for penis as well as a pejorative term used to refer to a despicable or contemptible individual. It is generally considered offensive, though in the past it has been used as a term of endearment. Its history as a euphemism for penis goes back to the 1500s and has been used in wordplay by Shakespeare and other writers who have combined the vulgarism with the standard meaning of the noun, which means the act of piercing or puncturing. Most linguists believe it has been used as a direct insult only since 1929.
An expletive is a word or phrase inserted into a sentence that is not needed to express the basic meaning of the sentence. It is regarded as semantically null or a placeholder. Expletives are not insignificant or meaningless in all senses; they may be used to give emphasis or tone, to contribute to the meter in verse, or to indicate tense.
