Minced oath Puns

I was talking to a friend, and we were talking about how in English you have minced oaths, like saying "darn" instead of "damn", shoot, gosh, friggin' and so on.

I thought "fogo" was a more polite way to say "foda", or "caraca" for "caralho", but I may be way off... (?)

What are some minced oaths common across Portuguese variants, like in Brazil, Portugal, etc.?

EDIT: Are any of these "OK" to be used by children?

Hello all!

I love a minced oath. I think one of the first times I ever appreciated etymology was learning that "bloody" had nothing to do with life juice, and was short for "By our Lady". Then of course blimey meaning "God blind me", gadzooks is "God's hooks" and so on.

What are some of your favourite (most interesting, most creative) minced oaths?

EDIT: Thank you so much for all the contributions, these are fantastic! I especially love the ones from non-English languages, as they are all new to me.

... for sacré Dieu or "holy God!" and translates to "holy blue!"

Okay, it's not university-level research, but I found it mildly interesting.

"Holy blue! Where is mi mama?"

Hello all you lovely World Builders!

For the past year, I have been working on a document full of slang for one of my cities. One thing I keep coming across in my research is minced oaths. These are so often used that they are used in our every day life (for english speakers especially) in such ways that we don't really think of them in relation to what they mean. (Personally I had no idea what effing meant the first time I read it.) Now, I'm not 100% positive about all that I've found, so I could be wrong. But, I thought that it was worth sharing all the same.

Question 1: What is a minced oath?

From what I understand, a minced oath came from the idea that one could not 'use god's name in vein' which eventually became 'one should not swear'. However, it is important to note that Oaths and Swears were once different than what we think of them today. I'm not getting into that right now.

According to wikipedia: A minced oath is a euphemistic expression formed by misspelling, mispronouncing, or replacing a part of a profane, blasphemous, or taboo term to reduce the original term's objectionable characteristics.

This might be a good read, if you want to know how the English used minced oaths.

As far as stand-ins go, today we see that in ways like D***N or OMG, but we also see it in ways people say 'Darn' instead of 'Damn' And here's a short list of this kind of shifting.

The kinds of minced oaths they use depends on what is 'proper' and 'sacred' to certain degrees. One thing that surprised me was when I watched a video by N.K. Jemisin a while back (sorry don't know where I saw it) and she mentioned that any swearing by a 'place were bad people go when they die' or more simply, 'afterlife' only works if a culture has historical, or current, belief in an after life. If they do not, they should not say things like 'damn' but should have a swear word that reflects the same kind of feeling, but is more culturally relevant. Which means, in the case of minced oaths, if there is no damn, there is no darn.

Question 2: When should Minced Oaths be added to world building (and a novel)?

Well, this is a little bit trickier. Because, they depend on Culture. If you need minced oaths, then you need full oaths to be mincing. That being the case, you can use oaths that we use every day and the different forms that those oaths take.

A minced oath is a euphemism for a swear word, essentially. "darn" or "dang" instead of damn, "frick" or "fudge" instead of fuck, "shoot" instead of shit, etc.

What are your favorite minced oath phrases/words in Spanish? I have always used "pucha" and (when in Guatemala) "puchica" regularly. Yesterday I was on the phone with a Bolivian friend and I heard her say "a la miércoles" to her dog and I couldn't help but laugh.

So minced oaths is basically ways to say swear words or vulgar words (almost always exclamation based ones) by using another similar or rhyming word in its place, or one that even resembles it in some other way (starting with the same letter is actually more typical than a minced oath that fully rhymes, at least in English language).

Most common are the blasphemy/lord's-name-in-vain type ones.

So God ---> "Gosh" ex: oh my gosh! (instead of oh my god)

Jesus ---> "Geez", ex: geez man, watch out where you're going.

Hell ----> "Heck" ex: what the heck?! (instead of what the hell?!)

Side not for heck, it's gotta be one of the most obnoxiously stupid ones, which is why I loved a meme I once saw, saying:

"Heck, where people who don't believe in Gosh go!"

Damn/Damnit - "Darn/Darnit", "Dang/Dangit." ex: Now hang on a gosh darn second there.

Shit ---> Shoot or Shucks ex: Aw shoot, I forgot my keys at home!

Fuck ----> Fudge or just "F" (eff) ex: What the eff was that? Aw you really fudged that one up didn't you?

Jesus Christ! ---> Cheese and Rice (this is a good rhyming one and thus I actually like it).

Shut the fuck up! ---> Shut the front door! This is one you have to use the enunciation and timing of the words just right or it doesn't work, i.e. really roll the "f" in "front" off you tongue and then say last part after that fast, so the person almost has to do a double take on what you said (because they were clearly expecting you to say shut the fuck up).

(UK only) Bloody ---> Blooming/ruddy (doesn't exist in the US, because bloody while understood is a lot less powerful or not eliciting the same effect in would in the UK).

I know there's a quite a few more UK specific ones, that I'll let the Brits come chime in about!

I only know minced oaths outside of English for Italian, the ones of all which I know are a counter to "bestemmie" (blasphemies) which in a largely parallel fashion to Dutch disease swearing is a very language specific type of swearing (and also that if you say it around the wrong people you'll at least end up with some very dirty glances or worse), I digress most Italian "bestemmie" involve "dio" (god() and then insert other word. Dio porco/Porcoddio (Pig God or God is a pig), Dio can(e) (God dog, or God is a dog; side note it's "cane" in standard Italian but in the Northern accent/dialects where it's more popular to say, the shortened "can" is often used instead); Dio Bastardo (Bastard god); Dio boia (ex

• "Why do you have to be such a prong about it?"
• "That new manager can be a real probe to workers who show up late."

Is this usage tenable, or does this fail as a minced oath by not being minced enough, if I can extend the metaphor? I only say this because prick also has non-offensive uses. Its offensiveness in either of the above sentences is in fact entirely a product of its usage. Would prong or probe used in the same fashion automatically become offensive also?

I was wondering how old the phrase is and I couldn't really find anything on google earlier than like 1997 and I'm pretty sure it predates it.

In case you're unfamiliar with the phrase, a minced oath is a word used as a substitute for a curse word (darn, crap, heck, shoot, etc. I think saying "Oh my gosh" also counts). Should Christians work on removing these from our vocabulary? If so, what, if anything, should we do in a situation in which one would normally be used?

Team assignments are listed in the comments below. This round will end at 8pm UTC Sunday September 20th, 2015. Songs should be submitted on gameofbands.com by the end-of-round deadline. Submissions will be linked in a single voting post shortly after. Voting will begin the following day and will run for 7 days ending at 8pm UTC Monday September 28th, 2015, upon which votes will be tallied, results posted, and flair awarded. This round's theme is Fracking, or Minced Oaths:
By 'popular' vote the theme for this round was Fracking. This was a joke, but it won, so there you go...Since we doubt people were interested in writing a bunch of songs about a specific method of drilling for oil (I've been wrong before though) we extended the theme to mean Minced Oaths.

Minced Oaths, or fake cuss words, or swearing without swearing; whatever you call it you've probably heard a ton of them. Obviously Battlestar Galactica does this, which is what inspired the interpretation, but there are plenty of examples in film and television of the writers using different methods to circumvent the censor.

Some helpful links:

• Wikipedia page on Minced Oaths
• Tv Tropes: Curse of the Ancients aka Minced Oaths (hopefully you have some time left to write the song once you're done here)

Each team is responsible for contacting its members, and submitting a link to any audio site that plays their submission in a web browser. Honestly, 99% of the time it's soundcloud. There is no distinct "team consolidation period". Team members are strongly encouraged to comment in their team thread below as soon as possible. If any team has difficulty assembling, there will be a new team consolidation post (late joiners thread) shortly after, and teams missing members as well as any registrants who could not be placed or registered late are free to self-organize into new teams using the Late Recruitment Thread.

When I was very young, I said "Gosh darn it" in the presence of my grandmother, a Baptist preacher's wife that may be a modern saint. Her reasoning was that I was substituting words (Those being "God-damn it") but still meaning the same thing. An older me must agree: if one were to consider taking the Lord's name in vain a sin, merely substituting words for the original phrase makes the sin no less severe. "Gosh darn it" makes no sense whatsoever given all traditional meanings of the words involved.

But could the phrase "God damn it" be only blasphemous with intent factored in? If I genuinely want a god to damn something (to hell), that would be one thing, but when I make such an exclamation it is merely a substitute for other possible phrases like "D'oh", "Crap", "Shit", and so on.

To take it one step further, if I (as a non-religious person) am very wrong about religion and find myself before the Pearly Gates after death, will every instance of my use of the phrase "God damn it" be used against me or, since I am an atheist, not be categorized as blasphemy?

Was a gosh the same as a modern damn? Was "blazes!" fuck?

G sus-Jesus gee's us G's: us.

A visiting minister was asked to lead in prayer in Sunday school, and when he had finished, a teacher heard one of her girls whisper, “Gosh, what a prayer!” Such an exclamation seems incongruous in expressing one’s appreciation of a prayer, but a little thought will lead anyone to the conclusion that “gosh” is not an appropriate word for a Christian to use on any occasion whatsoever. When we look into the original meaning of such interjections, we may be surprised that even some Christian people are habitual users of expressions which the dictionary terms “minced oaths.”

A very commonly used interjection is “Gee.” It is capitalized in Webster’s New International Diction­ary and given this definition: “A form of Jesus, used in minced oaths.” This derivation is even more ap­parent when the form “Geez,” now frequently heard, is used. Two other common words and their defini­tions are these: “Golly—a euphemism for God, used in minced oaths; gosh, a substitute for God, used in minced oaths.” “Darn, darned, darnation” are said to be “colloquial euphemisms for damn, damned, dam­nation.” Persons who allow their lips to utter “Gosh- darned” quite freely would be shocked if they realized the real meaning of the word.

A certain minister, professor in a sound seminary, when he was a child was not allowed to use “good­ness,” “mercy,” or “gracious” as exclamations. He was inclined to think the restrictions a family peculi­arity, merely a parental overcarefulness, but now he can see that it had a sound Calvinistic basis. The Shorter Catechism asks, “What is required in the third commandment?” and then gives this answer: “The third commandment requireth the holy and reverent use of God’s names, titles, attributes, ordi­nances, words, and works.” Certainly goodness is an attribute of God. That this is so is recognized by Webster in the latter part of his definition: “The word is used colloquially as an exclamation, or in various exclamatory phrases, as “for goodness sake! goodness gracious 1”—the reference being originally to the goodness of God.”

The use of minced oaths is quite contrary to the spirit of the New Testament teaching. For example, our Lord Jesus said: “But I say unto you, Swear not at all. . . . But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil” (Matt. 5:34, 37). The phrase “whatsoever is more than these” suggests the mean­ing of expletives, or exclamations: an expletive is defined as “something added merel