Strewthisms : A Little Dictionary of English Exclamations and Curses as Religious Euphemisms

Extraordinarily enough, this year, I realise, marks twenty years since the
first submission of my ‘Strewthisms’ proposal to Penguin Reference Books
in the Strand. It was rejected. Rooting through a file, I stumbled across
this provisional list and was compelled (as a completist) to pick over the
bones of a forgotten unfinished project. In my own case, the historical
context is a mid-20th Century English childhood and the strictures of
devout – not to say priggish – British publishers in their avoidance
of profanities in the slang of schoolgirl heroines and schoolboy heroes
animating the pages of Girl and The Eagle comics, whose adventures were
a direct corrective to the violent American comics that had landed on our
shores as ships’ ballast to be branded a baleful influence coarsening young
minds. As I nostalgically wrote (Dispossession, 2008, Salt): ‘After so many
bitter winters of post war rationing, we’d sensed the dark clouds lifting to
herald a new dawn of bright comic books and pink bubble gum.’ Ironical,
perhaps, to remember that the Rev. Chad Varah CH CBE, co-founder of
The Eagle (wholesome comic for a new dawn of pure-minded New
Elizabethans) was more notably the founder of the Samaritans, the world’s
first crisis hotline to provide support to those contemplating suicide.

All fired
Begorrah
Begob
Bejasus
Blasted
Bloody
By Gad
By Goles
By Golly
By Jay
By Jingo
By Lakin (By Our Lady)
By Heck
Chriggle
Christopher
Christopher Columbus
Consarn
Cor Lumme
Crikey
Crimble
Crimbo
Cripes
Dadblamed
Dadblasted
Dadburned
Daddrat
Dadrot
Dagnab
Danged
Darn
Darnation
Dashed
Dern
Deuced
Dingbust
Doggone
Drat
’Eck as like
Egad
For the love of Mike
Gad
Gadzooks
Gadso
Gadswoons
Gard
Garn
Gee
Gee Whiz
Gemini (O Jesu Domini)
Glory be to Pete
Go to Ecky
Godblimey
Goldanged
Goldarn
Goldarnit
Golding
Golly
Good Christmas
Gorblimey
Gosh
Goshdarn
Have a Happy
Heck
Him Below
Holy Mackerel
Holy Smoke
I’ll be blowed
I’ll be darned
I’m dashed
Jeanie Mac!
(An expression roughly equivalent to the quite common formula
‘Jesus, Mary, Joseph and all the Holy Martyrs!’,
avoiding use the Lord’s name taken in vain.)
Jeese
Jeez
Jee Willikins
Jee Whiskers
Jeepers
Jeepers Creepers
Jiminy (O Jesu Domini)
Jiminy Crickets
Jings
Jumping Jehoshaphat
Kinnell
Land
Landsakes
Laws-a-me
Lawks
Lawksamussy (Lord Have Mercy)
Lor
Lordy Me
Lor Lummy
Lord Lovikins
Lumme (Lord Love Me)
Marry
Marry Come Up
Mother O’Murphy (Mother of Mercy)
My Sainted Aunt
Merry Crimble
Nobodaddy
Od saves
Od’s bobs
Od’s body
Od’s bodikins
Od’s pitikins
Od rod ’em
Od’s zounds
Oh Glory!
Old Nick
Ruddy
Sakes Alive
Snakes Alive
Save Us
’Sbobs
’Sbodikins
’Selp
’Sflesh
’Sfoot
’Slife
Strewth (God’s Truth)
Swelp
Swelpme
Swelpme Bob
Swop me Bob
Swop me Bod
Tarnation (even ‘What in Carnation?’)
Tarnation take me
The Man Upstairs
The Ould Fella
Wouns
What the Deuce
What the Dickens
Xmas
’Zbloud
’Zblud
’Z’death
Zoodikers
Zoonters
Zounds

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A Moral Conundrum for Puritans:

Does a euphemism become no less a profanity when it’s translated in one’s head?

 

(And, yes, of course – for crying out loud! – this list of Strewthisms is no way near complete!)

 

PS. I grew up in the early Atomic Age when King Charles III, as a schoolboy, was heard to say ‘Blast!’ and was widely condemned by the British Press.  

 
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Catherine Eisner believes passionately in plot-driven suspense fiction, a devotion to literary craft that draws on studies in psychoanalytical criminology and psychoactive pharmacology to explore the dark side of motivation, and ignite plot twists with unexpected outcomes. Within these disciplines Eisner’s fictions seek to explore variant literary forms derived from psychotherapy and criminology to trace the traumas of characters in extremis. Compulsive recurring sub-themes in her narratives examine sibling rivalry, rivalrous cousinhood, pathological imposture, financial chicanery, and the effects of non-familial male pheromones on pubescence, 

see Eisner’s Sister Morphine (2008)

http://catherineeisnerfrance.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/sister-morphine.html

and Listen Close to Me (2011)

http://catherineeisnerfrance.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/published-this-autumn-listen-close-to.html 

and A Bad Case (2014)

http://catherineeisnerfrance.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/a-bad-case-and-other-adventures-of.html