I would put the answer in a spoiler but. blimey, I’ve forgotten how.
Anyway, according Minced oath - Wikipedia…
A minced oath, also known as a pseudo-profanity, is an expression based on a profanity which has been altered to reduce or remove the disagreeable or objectionable characteristics of the original expression; for example, “gosh” used instead of “God,” “darn” instead of “damn” and “heck” instead of “hell”. Nearly all profanities have minced variants; the words that are most taboo give rise to the most.
In case you didn’t know, “blimey” is a minced oath for “God blind me.”
The one I don’t understand is the Utah-specific “Oh my heck!”
“Heck” is used in placed og “hell”, as in “what the heck?” or “Where the heck is that?”
But if you substitute “hell” for “heck” in this expression you get “Oh my hell!”, which NOBODY says, in any context. It’s not obscene or blasphemous, it’s nonsensical. Nobody’s ever been able to tell me wh it’s used, or where it comes from.
(Knowing the context doesn’t help one DARN bit. It’s used as an expression of surprise or wonder.)
Although this is a common interpretation (but with “Our Lady” being the Virgin Mary, usually), it’s by no means certain. ashley Montague examined this expressioon in one of his books, giving a dozen or so supposed explanations for its origin, and came to the conclusion that none of them was compelling.
And "By Our Lady’ Doesn’t make much sense in the way the word is normally used, as in “bloody idiot”.
Out of all of the English words which begin with the letter F, FUCK is the only word referred to as the “F” word, it’s the one magical word.
As a transitive verb, John FRICK-ed Shirley.
As an intransitive verb, Shirley FSCKS.
It’s meaning’s not always sexual;
it can be used as an adjective, such as
John’s doing all the FUDGING work.
As part of an adverb,
Shirley talks too FACK-ing much.
As an adverb enhancing an adjective,
Shirley is FECK-ing beautiful.
As a noun, I don’t give a FOCK.
As part of a word abso-FREAKING-lutely,
or in-FARKING-credible.
And, as almost every word in the sentence,
FRAG the FRIGGING PHUCK-ers.
A linguistic phenomenon known as infixing, where a particle or word is placed within a word - following consistent structural patterns: you can say “abso-fucking-lutely”, but not “ab-fucking-solutely” - rather then as a prefix or suffix: if Ashley Montague is to be believed {his academic study of profanity, The Anatomy Of Swearing, is indispensable} it’s unique in the history of Indo-European languages, and is only to be found in a few Native American tongues. Un-fuckin’-believable.
