{"id":21408,"date":"2020-07-20T19:20:26","date_gmt":"2020-07-20T19:20:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=21408"},"modified":"2020-07-24T13:46:39","modified_gmt":"2020-07-24T13:46:39","slug":"zounds-what-the-fork-are-minced-oaths-and-why-are-we-still-fecking-using-them-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/zounds-what-the-fork-are-minced-oaths-and-why-are-we-still-fecking-using-them-today\/","title":{"rendered":"Zounds! What the fork are minced oaths? And why are we still fecking using them today?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kirk Hazen<\/a>, West Virginia University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

What in tarnation is \u201ctarnation?\u201d Why do people in old books exclaim \u201czounds!\u201d in moments of surprise? And what could a professor of linguistics possibly have against \u201cduck-loving crickets?\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll get to the crickets later. But what unites all these expressions is a desire to find acceptable versions of profane or blasphemous words. \u201cGod\u201d becomes \u201cgosh,\u201d \u201chell\u201d becomes \u201check,\u201d and \u201cdamnation\u201d becomes \u201ctarnation.\u201d In a similar vein, the rather antiquated phrase \u201cGod\u2019s wounds\u201d turns into \u201czounds.\u201d<\/p>\n

This lexical skirting of religious sensitivities falls in the category of expressions known as \u201cminced oaths.\u201d They are a kind of euphemism: an indirect expression substituted to soften the harsher blow of the profane.<\/p>\n

Bloody heck!<\/h2>\n

As a lifelong student of language<\/a>, I celebrate the variation of minced oaths and delight in comparing them with other euphemisms and slang. They provide examples of how people craft language to simultaneously conform and rebel, while building social cohesion.<\/p>\n

Both slang and minced oaths are forms of synonyms \u2013 words used to replace others while conveying the same core meaning. But minced oaths have historically performed a very specific role: providing a weakened but socially acceptable form of an actual religious oath, swear or curse.<\/p>\n

The earliest use of the term \u201cminced oaths,\u201d according to the Oxford English Dictionary, was in 1654, when elders in the Banffshire area of Scotland were criticized for using them.<\/p>\n

But the use of them had been around for at least a century before then. The playwright Christopher Marlowe used \u201czounds\u201d as early as 1593 as an exclamation<\/a>: \u201cZounds hee’l raise vp a kennell of Diuels.\u201d<\/p>\n

The term \u201cbloody\u201d was first recorded as the British now use it in 1540 and originally had no religious connotation. It was only centuries later that it was ascribed one, potentially standing in for \u201cby her lady\u201d and \u201cGod\u2019s blood\u201d and thus becoming somewhat of an adopted minced oath.<\/p>\n

The compound \u201cgadzooks\u201d \u2013 perhaps from \u201cGod\u2019s hooks\u201d \u2013 makes a written appearance in the second half of the 1600s in a play by Irish writer Thomas Duffett<\/a>: \u201cNow to get off, gadzooks, what shall we do?\u201d<\/p>\n

Surprisingly \u201cgosh\u201d and \u201check\u201d are late comers \u2013 \u201cGosh\u201d does not show up until 1757 and \u201check\u201d as an interjection only takes off at the end of the 19th century.<\/p>\n