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{{short description|Euphemistic expression}}
A '''minced oath''' is a [[euphemistic]] expression formed by deliberately misspelling, mispronouncing, or replacing a part of a [[profanity|profane]], [[blasphemy|blasphemous]], or [[taboo]] word or phrase to reduce the original term's objectionable characteristics. An example is "gosh" for "[[God]]",<ref>{{Cite web|title=Definition and Etymology of GOSH – Merriam-Webster|url=https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gosh|access-date=2021-01-04|website=www.merriam-webster.com|language=en}}</ref> or ''fudge'' for ''[[fuck]]''.<ref name="Minced meat">{{cite web |title=Allen's collection of minced oaths |url=https://www.lutins.org/lists/minced_oaths.html |website=lutins.org |access-date=12 April 2024}}</ref>

Many languages have such expressions. In the English language, nearly all profanities have minced variants.<ref name="Hughes-12">Hughes, 12.</ref>

==Formation==
Common methods of forming a minced oath are [[rhyme]] and [[alliteration]]. Thus the word ''[[wikt:bloody|bloody]]'' can become ''[[wikt:blooming|blooming]]'', or ''[[wikt:ruddy|ruddy]]''.<ref name="Hughes-12" /> 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.<ref name="Hughes-7">Hughes, 7.</ref> 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 [[Metre (poetry)|metrical]] equivalence, as in the pseudo-blasphemous "[[The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest|Judas Priest]]", substituted for the blasphemous use of "Jesus Christ".<ref>{{cite web |date=10 May 1996 |title=What does "Judas Priest" mean? |url=http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5_150.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080604002933/http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5_150.html |archive-date=June 4, 2008 |publisher=Straightdope.com}}</ref>

Minced oaths can also be formed by shortening: e.g., ''b'' for ''[[bloody]]'' or ''f'' for ''[[fuck]]''.<ref name="Hughes-12"/> Sometimes words borrowed from other languages become minced oaths; for example, ''[[wikt:poppycock|poppycock]]'' comes from the Dutch {{lang|nl|pappe kak}}, meaning 'soft dung'.<ref name="Hughes-16">Hughes, 16–17.</ref> The minced oath ''blank'' is an ironic reference to the dashes that are sometimes used to replace profanities in print.<ref name="Hughes-19"/> 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'',<ref name="definition 12b for blank">{{cite book|title=Oxford English Dictionary |publisher=Oxford Press |year=1994 |edition=2nd |volume=1 |isbn=978-0-19-861186-8 |url=http://www.oed.com/ |author=prep. by J. A. Simpson ...}} definition 12b for ''blank''</ref> 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 [[Bleep censor|a tone to mask profanities]] on radio.<ref name="Hughes-19">Hughes, 18–19.</ref>

==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 [[Platanus|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".<ref>{{cite journal|last=Echols |first=Edward C. |title=The Art of Classical Swearing |journal=[[The Classical Journal]] |volume=46 |issue=6 |pages=29–298 |year=1951 |jstor=3292805}}</ref> Since no god was called upon, Lampon may have considered this oath safe to break.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Dillon |first=Matthew |title=By Gods, Tongues, and Dogs: The Use of Oaths in Aristophanic Comedy |journal=Greece & Rome |series=Second Series|volume=42 |issue=2 |pages=135–151 |year=1995 |jstor=643226 |doi=10.1017/s0017383500025584|s2cid=162219070 }}</ref>

[[Michael V. Fox]] says there are minced oaths in the Bible: the Hebrew words ''ṣᵉba’ot'' 'gazelles' and ''’aylot haśśadeh'' 'wild does' ({{Bibleverse|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]]'.<ref>{{cite book|author=[[Michael V. Fox|Fox, Michael V.]] |title=The Song of Songs and the Ancient Egyptian Love Songs |publisher=University of Wisconsin Press |pages=109–110 |year=1985}}</ref>  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 [[wikt:geez|"Gis" or "Jis"]] for Jesus (1528).<ref name="Hughes-13">Hughes, 13–15.</ref>

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 ''[[wikt:'sblood|'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.<ref>Hugh Gazzard: An Act To Restrain Abuses Of Players (1606), in: The Review of English Studies, New Series, Vol. 61, No. 251 (September 2010), pp. 495-528, here p. 496</ref> Other examples from the 1650s included ''<nowiki/>'slid'' for "By God's eyelid" (1598), ''[[wikt:'sfoot|'sfoot]]'' for "By God's foot" (1602), and ''[[wikt:gadzooks|gadzooks]]'' for "By God's hooks" (referring to the [[nail (relic)|nails]] on [[Christian cross|Christ's cross]]). In the late 17th century, ''[[wikt:egad|egad]]'' meant ''oh God'',<ref>{{cite dictionary|url=http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=egad |title=Definition from the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary}}</ref> and ''[[wikt:ods bodikin|ods bodikins]]'' for "By God's [[Bodkin point|bodkins]] [i.e. [[nail (relic)|nail]]]s" in 1709.<ref>Hughes, 13.</ref>

In some cases the original meanings of these minced oaths were forgotten; the oath ''[[wikt:struth|'struth]]'' (''By God's truth'') came to be spelled ''[[wikt:strewth|strewth]]''. The oath ''[[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".<ref>Hughes, 103–105.</ref>

==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".<ref>{{cite journal|last=Lund |first=J.M. |title=The Ordeal of Zeal-of-the-Land Busy: The Conflict Over Profane Swearing and the Puritan Culture of Discipline |journal=Journal of American & Comparative Cultures |volume=25 |issue=3/4 |pages=260–269 |year=2002 |doi=10.1111/1542-734x.00038}}</ref> The minced oaths "'sblood" and "zounds" were omitted from the [[First Folio|Folio]] edition of [[Shakespeare]]'s play ''[[Othello]]'', probably as a result of [[Puritan]]-influenced censorship.<ref>{{cite book|last=Kermode |first=Frank |author-link=Frank Kermode |title=Shakespeare's Language |publisher=Farrar, Straus and Giroux |year=2001 |location=New York |page=166 |isbn=0-374-52774-1}}</ref> In 1941, a [[United States federal judge]] threatened a lawyer with [[contempt of court]] for using the word "darn".<ref>{{cite book |last=Montagu |first=Ashley |title=The Anatomy of Swearing |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |year=2001 |isbn=0-8122-1764-0 |location=Philadelphia |page=298 |author-link=Ashley Montagu}}</ref> ''Zounds'' may sound amusing and archaic to the modern ear,<ref>{{cite book|last=Leland |first=Christopher T. |title=Creative Writer's Style Guide: Rules and Advice for Writing Fiction and Creative Nonfiction |publisher=Writer's Digest Books |year=2002 |location=Cincinnati, OH |page=207 |isbn=1-884910-55-6}}</ref> 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".<ref>{{cite book|last=Kilpatrick |first=James J. |title=The Writer's Art |publisher=Andrews McMeel Publishing |year=1984 |location=Fairway, Kansas |page=83 |isbn=0-8362-7925-5}}</ref> (He had written an article entitled "Zounds! Is [[Ronald Reagan|Reagan]] Mad?" in the ''[[Spartanburg Herald]]'' for 12 June 1973,<ref>{{cite news|last=Kilpatrick |first=James J. |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1876&dat=19730612&id=kW4sAAAAIBAJ&sjid=r8sEAAAAIBAJ&pg=4986,2022360 |newspaper=Herald-Journal |title=Zounds! Is Reagan mad |date=12 June 1973}}</ref> and also used "zounds" in June 1970.)<ref>{{cite news|last=Kilpatrick |first=James J. |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1876&dat=19700611&id=wX4sAAAAIBAJ&sjid=6MwEAAAAIBAJ&pg=5354,1648469 |newspaper=Herald-Journal |title=Zounds! 5 cents a bottle |date=11 June 1970}}</ref>

==Literature and censorship==
{{Main|Minced oaths in media}}
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.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Chirico |first=Rob |date=2016-05-12 |title=When F--k Was Fug |url=https://slate.com/human-interest/2016/05/how-the-f-word-was-written-in-1948.html |access-date=2022-09-21 |website=Slate Magazine |language=en}}</ref> [[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".<ref>Maugham, Somerset. ''The Moon and Sixpence'', ch. 47; quoted in Hughes, 187.</ref>

[[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."<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yl4dILkcqm4C|page=761|title=The Lord of the Rings: One Volume|author-link=J.R.R. Tolkien|first=J.R.R.|last=Tolkien|publisher=[[Houghton Mifflin Harcourt]]|year=2012|isbn=9780547951942}}</ref>

==See also==
* [[Bowdlerization]]
* [[Eggcorn]]
* [[Euphemism]]
* [[Expletive deleted]]
* [[Four-letter word]]
* [[Fuddle duddle]]
* [[Avoidance_speech#Africa|Hlonipha]]

==Footnotes==
{{reflist|30em}}

==Works cited==
* {{cite book|last=Hughes |first=Geoffrey |title=Swearing: A Social History of Foul Language, Oaths and Profanity in English |publisher=Blackwell |year=1991 |location=Cambridge, MA |isbn=0-631-16593-2}}
* {{cite book|title=Oxford English Dictionary |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1989 |edition=2nd |issue=1 |isbn=978-0-19-861186-8 |url=http://www.oed.com/ |author=prep. by J. A. Simpson ...}}

{{Censorship}}
{{Profanity}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Minced Oath}}
[[Category:Profanity]]
[[Category:Interjections]]
[[Category:Self-censorship]]
[[Category:Euphemisms]]