Editing Minced oath (section)

==History==
The Cretan king [[Rhadamanthus]] is said to have forbidden his subjects to swear by the gods, suggesting that they instead swear by the ram, the goose or the [[Platanus|plane tree]]. [[Socrates]] favored the "Rhadamanthine" oath "by the dog", with "the dog" often interpreted as referring to the bright "Dog Star", ''i.e.'', [[Sirius]]. [[Aristophanes]] mentions that people used to swear by birds instead of by the gods, adding that the soothsayer Lampon still swears by the goose "whenever he's going to cheat you".<ref>{{cite journal|last=Echols |first=Edward C. |title=The Art of Classical Swearing |journal=[[The Classical Journal]] |volume=46 |issue=6 |pages=29–298 |year=1951 |jstor=3292805}}</ref> Since no god was called upon, Lampon may have considered this oath safe to break.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Dillon |first=Matthew |title=By Gods, Tongues, and Dogs: The Use of Oaths in Aristophanic Comedy |journal=Greece & Rome |series=Second Series|volume=42 |issue=2 |pages=135–151 |year=1995 |jstor=643226 |doi=10.1017/s0017383500025584|s2cid=162219070 }}</ref>

[[Michael V. Fox]] says there are minced oaths in the Bible: the Hebrew words ''ṣᵉba’ot'' 'gazelles' and ''’aylot haśśadeh'' 'wild does' ({{Bibleverse|Sg|2:7}}) are circumlocutions for titles of God, the first for either ''(’elohey) ṣᵉba’ot'' '(God of) Hosts' or ''(YHWH) ṣᵉba’ot'' '(Yahweh is) Armies' and the second for ''’el šadday'' '[[El Shaddai]]'.<ref>{{cite book|author=[[Michael V. Fox|Fox, Michael V.]] |title=The Song of Songs and the Ancient Egyptian Love Songs |publisher=University of Wisconsin Press |pages=109–110 |year=1985}}</ref>  The [[New English Translation]] footnotes dispute this interpretation of the Hebrew.

The use of minced oaths in English dates back at least to the 14th century, when "gog" and "kokk", both euphemisms for God, were in use. Other early minced oaths include [[wikt:geez|"Gis" or "Jis"]] for Jesus (1528).<ref name="Hughes-13">Hughes, 13–15.</ref>

Late [[Elizabethan]] drama contains a profusion of minced oaths, probably due to [[Puritan]] opposition to swearing. Seven new minced oaths are first recorded between 1598 and 1602, including ''[[wikt:'sblood|'sblood]]'' for "By God's blood" from [[Shakespeare]], '' 'slight '' for "God's light" from [[Ben Jonson]], and '' 'snails '' for "God's nails" from the historian John Hayward. Swearing on stage was officially banned by the [[Act to Restrain Abuses of Players]] in 1606, and a general ban on swearing followed in 1623.<ref>Hugh Gazzard: An Act To Restrain Abuses Of Players (1606), in: The Review of English Studies, New Series, Vol. 61, No. 251 (September 2010), pp. 495-528, here p. 496</ref> Other examples from the 1650s included ''<nowiki/>'slid'' for "By God's eyelid" (1598), ''[[wikt:'sfoot|'sfoot]]'' for "By God's foot" (1602), and ''[[wikt:gadzooks|gadzooks]]'' for "By God's hooks" (referring to the [[nail (relic)|nails]] on [[Christian cross|Christ's cross]]). In the late 17th century, ''[[wikt:egad|egad]]'' meant ''oh God'',<ref>{{cite dictionary|url=http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=egad |title=Definition from the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary}}</ref> and ''[[wikt:ods bodikin|ods bodikins]]'' for "By God's [[Bodkin point|bodkins]] [i.e. [[nail (relic)|nail]]]s" in 1709.<ref>Hughes, 13.</ref>

In some cases the original meanings of these minced oaths were forgotten; the oath ''[[wikt:struth|'struth]]'' (''By God's truth'') came to be spelled ''[[wikt:strewth|strewth]]''. The oath ''[[wikt:zounds|Zounds]]'' and related ''Wounds'' changed pronunciation in the [[Great Vowel Shift]], but the normal word ''wound'' did not (at least not in RP), so that they no longer sound like their original meaning of "By God's wounds".<ref>Hughes, 103–105.</ref>