Mince me an oath!

[Tanuki]

B&B being a gentlemanly sort of venue, I must not be the only one who minces an occasional oath in a post.

I mean, gosh all hemlock, there are surely hundreds of fine minced oaths I have yet to encounter. Gee whillikers, post them here! Background is of course appreciated. And if you can photograph one, dagnabbit, upload that!

I use them from my foxhole, to confound and amaze my adult children as the f-bombs land around me. Otherwise those boys would have to plunder old Looney Tunes to find any.

 

[Raissermesser]

Plenty of minced oaths, but to give background would be likely result in all asterisks.

 

[Tanuki]

Plenty of minced oaths, but to give background would be likely result in all asterisks.

All asterisks and banned for life!

 

[Raissermesser]

Here's a clean one, but not exactly a minced oath:

Buss-eyed. Another version may be boss-eyed. This means cross-eyed or squint-eyed. A favorite clean derogatory remark of my father.

 

[R100]

Horse feathers

Hen’s teeth

Bull hockey

H E double toothpicks

 

[sneefy]

Frell.
Would that qualify? (It's from Farscape.)

As in:
"What the frell is going on?
Or
"No frelling way!"

 

[Tanuki]

Frell.
Would that qualify? (It's from Farscape.)

As in:
"What the frell is going on?
Or
"No frelling way!"

How have my children never educated me about Farscape?

 

[simon1]

Shazbot!

Cut the last three letters out of it and you may have an idea of what the loose translation is. The first two letters are the same.

 

[sneefy]

How have my children never educated me about Farscape?

It's really quite good. I believe still free to stream on Prime.

 

[emwolf]

I rarely resort to an oath unless thoroughly irate. My mother, on the other hand was very fond of sayings such as "Judas priest." To say it like her, however, priest is a 2 syllable word: puh - riest.

 

[Scarry Knight]

Not sure if all fit:
Dag nabbit
7734 (type into calculator and invert) What the 7734?
Dad burn it
You can’t even blow a whistle you little numb knobs. (Gunsmoke-Jack Elam to his kids)
Jumpin’ Jupiter.
Naked Neptune. (The Virginian)
Dad blasted kids using foul language these days.
Buffalo Bagels....Colonel Potter Mash-They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but I think thats a lot of buffalo bagels.
Horse puckey
He's a purveyor of misexactitudes.....Winston Churchill

 

[Raissermesser]

The following are posted together for convenient deletion, should the need arise

Sam's Hill -
Tarnation - Think we know what these three mean.
Perdition -

"And the horse you rode in on." A true minced invective, being the latter part of a slightly longer invective.

Charlie Foxtrot. A minced oath made by combining the phonetic alphabet with the initials of a common military invective.

Shoot - a minced word with a scatological meaning.

Scat - This comes from a Greek word meaning animal droppings, hence its use in the word scatological. I'm suspicious that this might also be why nonsense words in Jazz is called "scat."

Zounds - a true minced oath derived from the old oath "By God's wounds."

 

[Tanuki]

The following are posted together for convenient deletion, should the need arise

Sam's Hill -
Tarnation - Think we know what these three mean.
Perdition -

"And the horse you rode in on." A true minced invective, being the latter part of a slightly longer invective.

Charlie Foxtrot. A minced oath made by combining the phonetic alphabet with the initials of a common military invective.

Shoot - a minced word with a scatological meaning.

Scat - This comes from a Greek word meaning animal droppings, hence its use in the word scatological. I'm suspicious that this might also be why nonsense words in Jazz is called "scat."

Zounds - a true minced oath derived from the old oath "By God's wounds."

Nice collection.

 

[Raissermesser]

Minor invective:

Bull-headed. Meaning stubborn.

Mule-headed. Meaning stubborn.

Blast, blasted. Meaning withered, scrawny, poor, as from drought.

By thunder. A mincing of the oath "By Jove" or "By Jupiter." There's a possibility it could mean "By Thor."

Hada Snitchet. To the best of my knowledge, a word meaning nothing, existing to replace true invectives.

Son of a sea cook. This is an interesting one. It comes from a word that sounds like "squ conk," or something like that. It's a word belonging to an Indian tribe in maybe what would become the Northeastern US. You know it by another word it became: "skunk."

Sap sucker. Mild derogatory name. Sometimes used as an invective.

 

[Tanuki]

I’ve been harking back to my youth.

Geez Louise. Was Louise just there to rhyme, or is there a secret meaning that still evades me? Popular about 3rd grade, for example during recess after a bad kick in kickball. By 5th grade a guy could get onto the ball field and learn some real language.

Gumdrops! Said with a scowl for emphasis. Pretty sure this is just scatological. Used by my small town cousin.

Oh, fiddlesticks! and Oh, fudge! Used by my sister and friends (when very young). I’m not sure they even knew why it started with F.

 

[Junker Jörg]

Of course there's Gee, Geez, Jeepers, and Jiminy Cricket, all for the one from Nazareth.

'Struth is for "G_d's truth," and gadzooks for "G_d's hooks" (in which hooks stand for the nails of the cross).

Even minced oaths such as these were forbidden by my parents because they knew what they meant.

 

[The Count of Merkur Cristo]

John:
I got one...'now git'.

BTW, I very partial to Mince Meat Pies.

"Mince[meat] pie,...arouses curiosity from the mystery attaching to it. Its popularity shall never wane until faith is lost in sight". Montpelier Argus

PS Remember what Stewie said;"You can't have a pie without Cool hWhip...You put Cool hWhip on pie. Pie tastes better with Cool hWhip".

 

[Junker Jörg]

Somewhat off-topic:

I've always been more interested in the seemingly lost art of creative cursing.
Here's an Irish gem: "May you be poorly positioned on a windy day."

Shakespearean insults are also fun: "I'll beat thee, but I should infect my hands."
(Timon of Athens Act 4, Scene 3, Line 399)

 

[Raissermesser]

Once heard:

"I hope you mother runs out from under the porch and bites you."

 

[Raissermesser]

Even minced oaths such as these were forbidden by my parents because they knew what they meant.

My father used a good many of them. A brother of his just came right out and said it. In battling the use of off-color invectives, I would muse that perhaps that was something genetic, maybe like a recessive gene, that wasn't expressed in my father, but was in that uncle and in myself. But after I left home, my father no longer sanitized his invectives, and I learned he, too, used the straight version just as much.