On Cussing

We’re away until January 6, but we’re reposting some of our favorite pieces from 2019. Enjoy your holiday!

So. We cuss. Some of us cuss by saying mercy me or suffering succotash. I like to say shooty-pooty, which I learned from a nice Baltimore boy back in 1963. It’s a Cub Scout version of shitty-pity, which is a cutesy diminutive for just plain shit.

This kind of substitution for a cuss word is what linguists call an amelioration. It softens the blow while still addressing the topic. This is not the same as a euphemism, by the way, which tries to evade or screen the subject. Americans are big on substitute amelioration. We invent thousands of them daily, it seems. Darn for damn, gosh for God. They often sound as though we started to say the taboo word but caught ourselves.

Almost all of us have darker vocabularies if we’re pushed. We all have strong vocal reactions to pain and surprise, to anger or fear. We often use the same language in response to the strong positive stimulus of pleasure or awe or humor. Cuss words and phrases, whatever they may be in our individual vocabularies, are the most potent words we have for expressing emotion.

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