Minced OH!ths

"Do you know what 'minced oath' is, Benji?"

The big man across from me squinted and said, "I think I do, but I'm not sure."

We'd been talking about people's reactions to assorted situations, and I brought up how straight-laced my mother was. He'd asserted several times in the past that his mom was no-nonsense toward silliness. Still, he'd never understood what I meant when I attempted to explain the differences between our respective mothers.

Rather than inform him directly, I borrowed from his previous experiences to provide him context for the expression. "You know what the word 'oath' means from the Bible, right?"

Benji promptly said, "Yeah, like a promise."

"Correct," I affirmed. "However, there is another use, especially in the King James Version, where 'oaths' refers to what we call 'swear words.'"

The lightbulb lit above Benji's head. "Oh, okay, I get it."

"A 'minced' oath would be like saying, 'Jeez, gosh, golly, or Oh my gosh' instead of 'Oh my God," I said.

Recognition continued on Benji's face. "So, spitting out regular oaths would be saying 'fuck,' but minced oaths would be 'fudge?'"

"Exactly. You got it. My mom would not speak even minced oaths. No 'gosh.' Not even 'oh, my!' In fact, there was a time when we had this 1972 Saab sedan when I was in high school. It was a piece of junk, but Dad got a good deal on the price; that was the same story on all our cars back then, ha ha ha.

"Anyway, I was driving my mom to school one morning, but before we left our house, the door latch jammed on the Saab on the driver's side. I grabbed a piece of baling twine--"

"Good old twine!" Benji interjected.

"I know, right? I miss twine," I opined. "I took that twine and strung it around the door handle next to me, tied off the other end, and handed it to my mother to hold onto while I drove. She held it while she graded papers, and the ride went along smoothly until we reached one intersection in particular. You probably know it: Griffin and Ohio? You know how it slopes down a little there?"

The big man nodded with a small smile growing in anticipation.

"Well, as I turned right onto Ohio, Mom forgot that she was supposed to hold my door closed and the string got away from her. My door swung wide open. I was securely buckled in by my seatbelt, but poor Mom was very startled."

"I bet she swore then!" Benji exclaimed.

"Nope! Not even a minced oath. All she said was, 'Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!' all through the intersection until I finished the turn, shifted gears, and caught the errant rope to close the door. That's when we discovered the latch wasn't jammed anymore, so we shut the door normally."

As I told the big man of my mom's reaction, he doubled up in laughter. When he caught his breath, he said, "That's all she said? You must've been thinking something worse!"

"Honestly? Nope. I was laughing like you were just now. It remains one of the funniest experiences I ever had with my mom. It still makes me laugh. I've been telling that story for more than 30 years."

"Did the door ever jam again?" he asked.

"Haha. Next day. But I'd learned from the previous day's adventure. When Mom got in the car, I looped the twine in between the seatbelt buckle and the latch so it was secured automatically, and she could grade papers or nap on the way to her school without the threat of a repeat of the swinging door debacle."