Jess Zafaris

Acronyms were relatively uncommon until the

1850s because they're more of a product of the business world and of trade and of technology.

bloody is a great example of a British swear word that just doesn't show up that much in English.

And that's an obscenity that has religious origins.

We have plenty of religious oaths in American English too, the concept of taking the Lord's name in vain or things along those lines.

But

What I do think is interesting is the way we mince those oaths together into softer language that we no longer really think about the origins of.

I suppose it's uncommon these days, but you've probably heard of the term gadzooks, which is a contraction of the term God's hook's.

And it literally refers to the nails that secured Christ to the cross.

And we run into words like that.

The other one in the vein of like Yosemite Sam is what in tarnation?

Tarnation is from an earlier oath, tarnal, like you pay a tarnal high price for something.

It's a contraction of by the eternal.

So that's an interesting one, too.

Right.

It's a mincing of other words for that.

That one is funny, too.

It has an interesting false etymology.

It's often said to be a shortening of the name Thomas Crapper, who was a sanitation specialist.

worker and inventor who patented a couple of plumbing parts in, I believe, the late 1800s, early 1900s.