A minced oath is a euphemistic expression formed by deliberately misspelling, mispronouncing, or replacing a part of a profane, blasphemous, or

taboo A taboo is a social group's ban, prohibition or avoidance of something (usually an utterance or behavior) based on the group's sense that it is excessively repulsive, offensive, sacred or allowed only for certain people.''Encyclopædia Britannica ...

word or phrase to reduce the original term's objectionable characteristics. An example is "gosh" for "

God In monotheistic belief systems, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. In polytheistic belief systems, a god is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or for controlling some part of the un ...

", or ''fudge'' for ''

fuck ''Fuck'' () is profanity in the English language that often refers to the act of sexual intercourse, but is also commonly used as an intensifier or to convey disdain. While its origin is obscure, it is usually considered to be first attested ...

''. 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 A rhyme is a repetition of similar sounds (usually the exact same phonemes) in the final Stress (linguistics), stressed syllables and any following syllables of two or more words. Most often, this kind of rhyming (''perfect rhyming'') is consciou ...

and

alliteration Alliteration is the repetition of syllable-initial consonant sounds between nearby words, or of syllable-initial vowels if the syllables in question do not start with a consonant. It is often used as a literary device. A common example is " Pe ...

. Thus the word '' bloody'' 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 slang is a form of slang word construction in the English language. It is especially prevalent among Cockneys in England, and was first used in the early 19th century in the East End of London; hence its alternative name, Cockney rhymin ...

, 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 "Cunt" () is a vulgar word for the vulva in its primary sense, and it is used in a variety of ways, including as a term of disparagement. "Cunt" is often used as a disparaging and obscene term for a woman in the United States, an unpleas ...

" 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". Minced oaths can also be formed by shortening: e.g., ''b'' for '' bloody'' or ''f'' for ''

''. Sometimes words borrowed from other languages become minced oaths; for example, '' poppycock'' comes from the Dutch , meaning 'soft dung'.Hughes, 16–17. The minced oath ''blank'' is an ironic reference to the dashes that are sometimes used to replace profanities in print. 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'', definition 12b for ''blank'' 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.Hughes, 18–19.

History

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 Socrates (; ; – 399 BC) was a Ancient Greek philosophy, Greek philosopher from Classical Athens, Athens who is credited as the founder of Western philosophy and as among the first moral philosophers of the Ethics, ethical tradition ...

favored the "Rhadamanthine" oath "by the dog", with "the dog" often interpreted as referring to the bright "Dog Star", ''i.e.'', Sirius.

Aristophanes Aristophanes (; ; ) was an Ancient Greece, Ancient Greek Ancient Greek comedy, comic playwright from Classical Athens, Athens. He wrote in total forty plays, of which eleven survive virtually complete today. The majority of his surviving play ...

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". Since no god was called upon, Lampon may have considered this oath safe to break. Michael V. Fox says there are minced oaths in the Bible: the Hebrew words ''ṣᵉba’ot'' 'gazelles' and ''’aylot haśśadeh'' 'wild does' () 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'. The

New English Translation The New English Translation (NET) is a free, "completely new" English translation of the Bible, "with 60,932 translators' notes" sponsored by the Biblical Studies Foundation and published by Biblical Studies Press. History and textual basis ...

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).Hughes, 13–15. Late Elizabethan drama contains a profusion of minced oaths, probably due to

Puritan The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to rid the Church of England of what they considered to be Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should b ...

opposition to swearing. Seven new minced oaths are first recorded between 1598 and 1602, including '' 'sblood'' for "By God's blood" from

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...

, '' 'slight '' for "God's light" from

Ben Jonson Benjamin Jonson ( 11 June 1572 – ) was an English playwright, poet and actor. Jonson's artistry exerted a lasting influence on English poetry and stage comedy. He popularised the comedy of humours; he is best known for the satire, satirical ...

, 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. 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'', and '' ods bodikins'' for "By God's bodkins nail">nail_(relic).html" ;"title=".e. nail (relic)">nail" in 1709. 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

wikt:zounds">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".

Acceptability

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". The minced oaths "'sblood" and "zounds" were omitted from the First Folio">Folio The term "folio" () has three interconnected but distinct meanings in the world of books and printing: first, it is a term for a common method of arranging Paper size, sheets of paper into book form, folding the sheet only once, and a term for ...

edition of

's play ''Othello'', probably as a result of

-influenced censorship. In 1941, a

United States federal judge In the United States, a federal judge is a judge who serves on a court established under Article Three of the U.S. Constitution. Often called "Article III judges", federal judges include the chief justice and associate justices of the U.S. S ...

threatened a lawyer with

contempt of court Contempt of court, often referred to simply as "contempt", is the crime of being disobedient to or disrespectful toward a court of law and its officers in the form of behavior that opposes or defies the authority, justice, and dignity of the co ...

for using the word "darn". ''Zounds'' may sound amusing and archaic to the modern ear, 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". (He had written an article entitled "Zounds! Is Reagan Mad?" in the '' Spartanburg Herald'' for 12 June 1973, and also used "zounds" in June 1970.)

Literature and censorship

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 Profanity, also known as swearing, cursing, or cussing, is the usage of notionally word taboo, offensive words for a variety of purposes, including to demonstrate disrespect or negativity, to relieve pain, to express a strong emotion (such a ...

in their writing so that they will not offend audiences or incur

censorship Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. This may be done on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient". Censorship can be conducted by governmen ...

. One example is '' The Naked and the Dead'', where publishers required author

Norman Mailer Nachem Malech Mailer (January 31, 1923 – November 10, 2007), known by his pen name Norman Kingsley Mailer, was an American writer, journalist and filmmaker. In a career spanning more than six decades, Mailer had 11 best-selling books, at least ...

to use the minced oath "fug" over his objections. 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".

J. R. R. Tolkien John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (, 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''. From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was the Rawlinson ...

pretends a similar mincing of profanity in ''

The Lord of the Rings ''The Lord of the Rings'' is an Epic (genre), epic high fantasy novel written by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's book ''The Hobbit'' but eventually d ...

'', 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."

Footnotes

Works cited