Conference thebay::joyoflex

    "There are times, difficult times, when swearing
    provides a relief offered not even by prayer."
    
    					Mark Twain

    Having made abundant use of the f-word since Jr. Hi, I find that
    variety is more important than strength of oath for cuss-cleansing of
    my soul.  "Holy cats" is a current favorite, as is "MOTHer of pearl!"
    
    "Johnny Dangerously" supplied the invaluable "farging bastridges" and
    may have been the source for "some of a bisque".  If you feel yourself
    running short of such exclamations, seek out a W. C. Fields film and
    take notes.
    
    Constructions like "Gosh darn motherf*er" can also be satisfying at
    moments of great emotion. 
    
    I disagree that the widespread reproduction of those words which were
    once encountered only live-and-in-yer-face has ruined the curser's
    craft.  It has only made it easier for the true masterpieces to live on
    - e.g., "Raging Bull"'s unforgettable "Your mother..." line.
    
    Ray

    I suppose this is something you couldn't explain in a way that
    those of us who haven't seen the movie could, um, extrapolate?
    
    I still like the f-word, having come to its use relatively late in
    life.  
    
    I occasionally make use of an inherited favorite -- my
    grandfather's "Oh, damn it to hell in a loblolly."  (A loblolly is
    a small swamp or  an oversized mud puddle, the kind of thing you
    get in the Western US when water sits on clay/alkalai soils.  You
    can lose a logging truck in the bottom.  Don't know if there's an
    eastern US or standard English term for the same thing.)
    
    --bonnie

   confound it!

   dadgummit!

   ferpete's sake!

   for crying out loud!


   I heard these while growing up and always thought they were funny.

   My mother says that when I was four years old, I would walk around the
   house saying, "Damn, damn, damn, damn."  Since that wasn't one of the
   chosen curses of my parents, she naturally wondered where it came from. 
   Then she remembered that we'd watched "My Fair Lady" a few days before. 
   That was one of Higgins' lines.  It's still one of my favorite
   expressions.


   							Terza

    Re: .4
    
    Heavens, what a noise!

�    I suppose this is something you couldn't explain in a way that
�    those of us who haven't seen the movie could, um, extrapolate?
    
    I will use the WW II film obscenity cipher ("lovin'" = f-word,
    "little-apples" = sh-word, "thing" = male-organ-word-beginning-with-d,
    etc.).

    (spoiler warning for those who haven't seen "Raging Bull" and have the
    good taste to hope to see it in the future)

    

    The scene:  At his wife's prodding, Jake LaMotta is calling his
    estranged brother from a pay phone.  When his brother picks up the
    phone, Jake doesn't say anything. 

    Brother:  "Hello...  Is that you again, Sal?  Sal, I'm gettin' real
    tired of this little-apples.  Jesus Christ...  OK, Sal?  Sal, listen
    very carefully." (Slowly and precisely:) "Your mother lovin' sucks
    lovin' big elephant lovin' things."
    
    Jake smiles and hangs up.

    The charm is lost in translation, I fear. 

    Ray

    
    Can remember my father using the following "Holy sheepshit". 
    
    And, although not a curse, when he was exasperated everybody knew
    it because he would come out with "So help me piss in your cornflakes"
    I've no idea where it came from but it worked.
    
    Roger

    A history professor I used to know favored, "May your hamstrings
    snap at the moment of achievement."
    
    I don't suppose that would work on a hammer, however.
    
    --bonnie

  This doesn't really count as a curse or even an exclamation but since
  the basenote asked about hitting one's thumb with a hammer (aka hitting
  the wrong nail), here goes.

  Long ago I worked for a house construction company.  One afternoon, I
  watched my boss attempt to bring a basement lally column to vertical
  with a prybar and a 3-pound hand sledge.  He managed to get his thumb
  between the bar and the sledge at just the wrong instant.

  Ed spent the next few minutes holding his thumb, bleeding, and moaning
  in pain.  At the end of this period he brought the injured thumb right
  up to his face and said,

  "Stop hurting, you sumbitch, or I'll hit you again."


  JP

I've been known to say the following after hitting my thumb with a hammer:

"Ooh, that really does hurt like crazy!" about ten time faster then 
I would normally talk.  I guess the operative word is "Ooh" though the rest
probably substitutes for a more common expletive.

My wife usually just says "Fudge!"

Wook

    I seem to recall that some college actaully got a grant to study
    the emotional release offered by curses, and took the trouble to
    break down the most popular one, to find out which syllables were
    most potent.
    They then "synthesised" the Ultimate Oath, guaranteed to provide
    the most release in the least words.
    
    It came out (yes, I _am_ going to tell you...) as something very
    like   "Oh, Baden Powell".   sadly, that very Christian gentleman
    founded the Scout movement, and it was felt to be in poor taste
    to suggest using his name as an expletive.
    
    
    Ian

	"Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhugar!"

	Through tightly clenched teeth and usually hopping on one foot:

		"God Bless America!"

	And from Firesign Theatre:

		"Godfrey Daniel! (pesky redskins)"

Stephen

�	And from Firesign Theatre:
�
�		"Godfrey Daniel! (pesky redskins)"
    
    And they, I believe, derived it from W. C. Fields in "My Little
    Chickadee".
    
    Ray