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8 comments:
According to the Oxford dictionary examples, it could be "flipping"...
https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/flipping
Oh my heck! Someone at Oxford has been to Utah!
Honest question:
I've known several Mormons over the years, brother officers and fighter pilots, including one who was a flatmate for a year. (While we shared that flat I was indifferent to religion, including my own, so failed to seize my opportunity to learn about LDS beliefs.) In often-salty surroundings, all were good about keeping their language clean, as my understanding is that Mormons are not to use curses and swear-words.
Whence my question. If it is wrong to use curses and swear-words, is it truly acceptable to use euphemisms for them such as flipping and heck? Presumably the speaker is expressing the same sentiments a less-disciplined person would by cursing. Is it the unworthy sentiment that is unacceptable, or just the ugly or sacrilegious words? If the former, I should think euphemistic work-arounds would also be unacceptable.
I've much to learn about LDS beliefs and ways, but the more I learn the more interested I am. Whatever may be LDS distinctions from small-o orthodox Christianity, Mormon teachings and practices appear to make for an exceptionally successful social model in today's otherwise falling Christendom.
Mormons absolutely do not swear. I have literally never in my life heard a practicing Mormon (of whom I have known thousands) use any of the seven words you can't say on television. Some even go a bit too far in avoiding profanity. When I was a missionary, my mission president once took one of the elders to task for using the unmanly euphemism "the other place."
"Elder, are you afraid to say 'hell'?"
"No, sir."
"Then say it."
"Hell, sir."
"Use it in a sentence."
"Go to hell, sir."
The use of minced oaths is one of those gray areas, like drinking caffeinated soft drinks when only coffee and tea are explicitly forbidden. In practice, most Mormons use them, and "Oh my heck!" is indeed a stereotypical part of the Utah Valley dialect (which is funny, since no one anywhere ever says "Oh my hell!").
My father, although he used "shoot" and "gosh" rather freely, once reprimanded me and some friends for a catchphrase we had adopted: "Ouch! Son of a couch! Ow! Son of a cow!" He felt it was inappropriate because it made the listener think of the expression it was euphemizing. So we changed it to "Ouch! I want to sit on a couch! Ow! I want to milk a cow!" I don't recall his being particularly amused.
As some of these examples should make clear, there is something inherently humorous, corny, or arch about euphemized swear-words, and for that reason I think they are NOT "expressing the same sentiments" as unfiltered cursing. Genuine swearing is characterized by its rawness and its disregard for the conventions of politeness, and the opposite is true of minced oaths. Try expressing pure, unfiltered rage by shouting "Gosh darn it!" and you'll find that it can't really be done.
I'm not sure if this is done anymore, but when I was younger network television stations used to dub over the swearing in the R-rated films they broadcast, in much the same manner you describe in your comment, Wm, with words like heck and shoot replacing their more offensive counterparts.
This in itself was not too jarring most of the time, but every once in a while, the dubbers would get a little too adamant about remaining as close to the original swear as possible, which resulted in some truly bizarre substitutions that were often just as, if not more, offensive and vulgar than the uncensored cursing would have been.
For example, I once watched a "clean" version of The Usual Suspects in which an obscene phrase was overdubbed with the expression, "Give me the keys, you fuzzy socksucker!"
C. S. Lewis has some of the baddies in That Hideous Strength use "bucking" in lieu of the f-bomb, something I've never encountered anywhere else.
Three Amigos uses "son of a motherless goat" as a "clean" alternative to SOB -- but which is actually more offensive?
And I suppose no discussion of euphemized swearing would be complete without a mention of the newest addition to the lexicon: "jogger."
"Minced oaths"! That's a new one to me. I'll have to remember it. Many thanks.
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