Minced Oaths

 

On 7 May 2025, I posted Holy Smokes! about the white or black smoke which the Roman Catholic Cardinals in the Papal Conclave use to signal the status of the election of the next pope. The post mentioned minced oaths in discussing the situation and I promised to talk about that later. Well, here it is.

Minced oaths are phrases which can sound blasphemous but which are altered or disguised to be less explicit. They use indirect language, softened phrasing, or euphemisms. Think of the British exclamation Zounds!, which replaces God’s Wounds!  The usage also exists in other languages but is very extensive in the English-language. Examples include: dang, darn, dagnabbit, gadzooks, gee whillikers, jeepers, blimey, good heavens, Holy Moly, Holy Cow, Holy Mackerel, Great Scot, Golly, and many more. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:English_minced_oaths

 The idea of not saying the name of God out loud because of its sacredness is an ancient Jewish concept. When the holy name, the Tetragrammaton JHWH,  יהוה, occurs in their sacred texts, Jews still today substitute Adonai ,אֲדֹנָי , meaning Lord, or Ha-Shem, הַשֵּׁם, meaning the Name, or Elohim, אֱלֹהִים, meaning God.

Saying the holy name of God out loud is considered to be disrespectful, sacrilegious, and offensive. Many observant English-speaking Jews carry this even further, writing the word God as G-d.

James, the brother of Jesus, warned against the careless use of words. James 3:2-10. Being able to control one’s language is considered to be a sign of spiritual maturity.

Snopes.com

 

On 7 May 2025, I posted Holy Smokes! about the white or black smoke which the Roman Catholic Cardinals in the Papal Conclave use to signal the status of the election of the next pope. The post mentioned Snopes.com in discussing a misconception about the known origin of the exclamation and I promised to talk about Snopes later. Well, here it is.

Snopes.com is a fact checking website which checks the available documentation about what actually happened at events, the truth of statements and claims, rumors, legends, or hoaxes. The site was originally named the Urban Legends Reference Page. They give their opinions as True, False, Undetermined, Unverifiable, or some variation on these.

            Snopes is sometimes accused of being left-leaning in its political judgements, but the site rejects that charge. If you use the site, that will be left up to you to judge. In the case of the Holy Smokes! exclamation, their judgement of False is based on hard empirical facts which do not depend on any particular religious or political orientation.