Terms Which Have Disappeared

[2jakes]

"Dag nab it!" is how I most often heard it.

Well...dang it...

Don’t let me catch you sayin’ it or...


“ I’ll take you out to the shed &
tan yer hide !"

So what’s the punishment today ?

Take away the xbox [huh]

 

[ingineer]

The dag nab it phrase is a recent book i've been reading:
'Harbinger of Doom" Glenn G. Thater
not my usual stuff but free on google books
Dang ! is an expression i use all the time
but never heard anyone use my mother's
"Roses and Petunias"

 

[BriarWolf]

“Dag-nab-it” was used by my uncles .

"Dog-gone-it” was another one.

Lately I've developed a reputation as the only person anyone has actually heard use the phrase outside of a cartoon.

 

[2jakes]

Peachy keen

A coworker hears me saying it all the time & likes it
So now he’s saying it too.

But his wife at home is going bonkers .
So next day, he asked me what it meant.


I don’t actually know where I first heard it, but I told him that
for me, it means it’s cool or something that I like..

 

[skydog757]

My late uncle used to use the phrase "Crackin' ice!" in place of a curse word whenever he did something like hit his thumb while hammering in a nail.

 

[Stearmen]

“Dag-nab-it” was used by my uncles .

"Dog-gone-it” was another one.

Tarnation, the language you young whippersnappers use these days!

 

[Bamaboots]

"Dad-gum" or
"Dad-gum-it"

Just listen to any interview with FSU's former football coach, Bobby Bowden and you'll still hear it. I first heard from my grandmother who never cursed.

 

[Braz]

"Land 'o Goshen."
Great Grandmother said it often, where we might use "OMG" today. As in, "Land 'o Goshen, it's a hot one today."

 

[LizzieMaine]

Fibber McGee popularized "dad-rat-it," along with such variations as "dad-rat the dad-ratted rat!" We never minced our oaths in my family, but the rhythm was certainly accurate.

 

[TimeWarpWife]

There probably isn't any punishment for kids using curse words now days because most likely they heard it from the parents. I am disgusted by how many parents curse - in public, mind you - at their children or in front of them. And I'm talking little children. It's all I can do to restrain myself from finding a bar of soap and washing the parents' mouths out with soap! When I was a kid we always said "daggone it" for doggone it or dad drat it and I still say it today. A friend of my mom's says you might as well go ahead and use the curse word as to use a substitute because everybody knows what you really mean. I'm not sure I agree. But seriously people need to learn some new adjectives because I am so sick of hearing the "f" word used to describe everything in the world. And most people don't even realize they're using it because they've become so used to using and hearing it.

 

[Wire9Vintage]

I always liked the anti-blasphemy ones... My grandmother would always say "well for pity's sake."

My husband's Irish grandfather was more fond of "Jakers!" --so when some years back an American PBS cartoon was on called "Jakers," my in-laws were appalled! They basically had this little cartoon pig yelling "Jesus!" In his Irish accent all the time! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[BobHufford]

My wife's Baptist grandmother would not even use the word "swear". She would say "Well I swan". Now we both say it too.

 

[LizzieMaine]

It's interesting the way swearing has changed just since I was a kid. Forty or fifty years ago blasphemic and legitimacy-oriented swearing was heard every day, but only the worst reprobates used sexually-oriented language. Now, it's just the opposite. The F-word is common language in every walk of life, and you can call someone a mutha-F to their face and get away with it. But if you let out with a G-D IT! in public, or call someone a stinking SOB, people look away in horror.

 

[Fading Fast]

It's interesting the way swearing has changed just since I was a kid. Forty or fifty years ago blasphemic and legitimacy-oriented swearing was heard every day, but only the worst reprobates used sexually-oriented language. Now, it's just the opposite. The F-word is common language in every walk of life, and you can call someone a mutha-F to their face and get away with it. But if you let out with a G-D IT! in public, or call someone a stinking SOB, people look away in horror.

What's marginally interesting about the F-word is that while - as you said - it is used in common vernacular and in every manner: I F'ed this up, he's a F'en this, Go F yourself, That's all F'ed up, etc. and we all seem okay with it and treat it as a not-harsh word, ironically, the word is still jarring when used in its true original meaning.

I get my haircut at a not fancy place by a woman who is into the biker culture (which I've learned a ton about from her - it is a very well-developed subculture). Everyone once in awhile she'll say something like, "I was F-ing this guy last night" and it takes me a minute to realize what she was saying as we are not used to this, now, very common word being used in its true meaning. And it is very jarring, I always mentally pause and say "did she really just say that?"

I think this fits into the direction and tone of where this thread is right now, but please delete if it went too far - that was absolutely not my intent.

 

[2jakes]

One reason my folks stopped going to the movies was the language.

I mostly hear the F word from young people among themselves. Hardly is it used in a conversation with adults.
Mostly I hear vagrants say it. I never heard it at work or in the stores or restaurants unless the person was angry.
but not in everyday conversation.
About the only time my colleague & I would use it, was in certain stress conditions ( shooting or a hostage situation)
when I worked for the news media. But it was never directed towards each other. What I always found amusing was
the ladies who would swear. More amusing because it was not done on purpose or part of their everyday language.

 

[tonyb]

My education has it that every culture, as best we can tell, has its taboo words. We surely have ours, although they aren't necessarily the same taboo words of a generation or two or three ago.

 

[LizzieMaine]

One reason my folks stopped going to the movies was the language.

I mostly hear the F word from young people among themselves. Hardly is it used in a conversation with adults.
Mostly I hear vagrants say it. I never heard it at work or in the stores or restaurants unless the person was angry.
but not in everyday conversation.
About the only time my colleague & I would use it, was in certain stress conditions ( shooting or a hostage situation)
when I worked for the news media. But it was never directed towards each other. What I always found amusing was
a lady who would swear . More amusing because it was not done on purpose.

I never heard the F-word at all, from anyone, until I was in junior high school. And I stress, in saying this, that nobody in my family was a prig when it came to language. I had family that worked on the docks, I grew up in a gas station, and everybody in my family swore to beat the band, in front of kids, in front of other people, nobody cared. And we weren't exceptions -- that's the way people were in my neighborhood. Kids weren't supposed to swear, but we did it anyway when we could get away with it.

But the F-word was absolutely alien to us.

Fast forward forty-five years or so. My mother is 76 years old, worked for twenty years in a hospital, and the experience changed her language. Now every other word out of her mouth is f-this and f-that. F the neighbors. F my sister. F the Red Sox. F the car. F the weather. F-f-ity-f-f-f-f.

I don't care for the word myself, but I confess that there are times of great rage when I'll pop it off -- largely because my old "g-d it" standby, that I learned at my grandmother's knee, is no longer socially acceptable.

I'll add that when I do swear, it's very much on purpose. Because otherwise, what's the point?

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

My education has it that every culture, as best we can tell, has its taboo words. We surely have ours, although they aren't necessarily the same taboo words of a generation or two or three ago.

And swearing often is a sure identifier of a native speaker of any language because you might know the swear words in some other language but it seems as if there's a certain vehemence that only a native speaker can attain.

 

[Bamaboots]

Twenty five years in my chosen field, working around other cops and the people we dealt with daily, take the F word out of our language and no one would have any adjectives, nouns and verbs. The only time you didn't hear it was in court. Well, mostly. Said it to a few lawyers and judges in a hushed tone.

 

[2jakes]

I never heard the F-word at all, from anyone, until I was in junior high school. And I stress, in saying this, that nobody in my family was a prig when it came to language. I had family that worked on the docks, I grew up in a gas station, and everybody in my family swore to beat the band, in front of kids, in front of other people, nobody cared. And we weren't exceptions -- that's the way people were in my neighborhood. Kids weren't supposed to swear, but we did it anyway when we could get away with it.

But the F-word was absolutely alien to us.

I’ve said this before, but as a kid of about 9 or 10. I remember running in to the kitchen & asking my mom..
“what does frog you mean?” That’s what I thought they were saying.

I was so naive ! :eusa_doh:

All my mom said was ... “never mind, don’t play with those rowdy kids”.

And I began to learned about sex from the dirty jokes some of the guys told in elementary.
I was about 10 & had no idea, but laughed just the same. I didn’t want them to make fun of me.
It took a while to comprehend & I could never imagine my mom & dad getting naked & doing such things.
This happens when folks don’t explain things about Life ! :eeek: