In the Bible, the Third Commandment proscribes taking the Lord’s name in vain—but, judging from the profusion of sound-alike euphemisms in circulation, the impulse must be nigh irrepressible. The canonical pornographic and scatological swears have only a few such euphemisms: “fuck” has “fudge”, while “fucking” has “fricking”, “frigging”, and “freaking” (and even these are questionable in polite company); “shit” has “shoot” and not much else. But just look at all the euphemisms for blasphemy:

Gosh, golly, darn, dang, gadzooks, egad, doggone, dadgum, dagnabbit, goodness, goodness gracious, good grief, gee, geez, gee whiz, gee willikers, jeepers, jeepers creepers, jeez Louise, crikey, criminy, cripes, crying out loud

One thing I love about some of these euphemisms is that you can almost hear their origins. Some father somewhere, within earshot of his kids, starts one way and ends another: “Oh, for Ch[rist’s sake]rying out loud!” or “Je[sus Christ]eez Louise!”

I have a cousin who once invented his own euphemism—“geez o’flippies”—for a particular sacrilegious swear. Being quite young when I first heard it, I asked him why he used such a strange exclamation. “It’s nicer than saying ‘Jesus Fucking Christ’,” he replied. I have to admit that’s true.