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Minced Oath
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". Many languages have such expressions. In the English language, nearly all profanities have minced variants.Hughes, 12. Formation Common methods of forming a minced oath are rhyme and alliteration. Thus the word ''bloody'' (which itself may be an elision of "By Our Lady"—referring to the Virgin Mary) can become ''blooming'', or ''ruddy''. 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.Hughes, 7. 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 ...
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