Minced Oaths In Literature
It is common to find minced oaths in literature and media. Writers often include minced oaths instead of profanity in their writing to avoid offending their audience or incurring censorship. Novels W. Somerset Maugham referred to this problem in his 1919 novel ''The Moon and Sixpence'', where he acknowledged: Strickland, according to Captain Nichols, did not use exactly the words I have given, but since this book is meant for family reading, I thought it better—at the expense of truth—to put into his mouth language familiar to the domestic circle. In particular, authors of children's fiction utilize minced oaths for characters who swear profusely, in order to depict a part of their behavior that would be unconvincing not to represent, whilst avoiding the use of swear words considered unsuitable for children. In 1851, Charles Dickens wrote: Bark's parts of speech are of an awful sort—principally adjectives. I won't, says Bark, have no adjective police and adjective strange ...
[...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]