I was walking across campus at Occidental College, a path surrounded by native oak trees,  chatting with this guy, and I blurted out, “golly.” He didn’t say anything about my odd exclamation. Frankly, I didn’t know it was odd. But later, after we were married, he told me he was intrigued by a girl that was in a time warp, saying, “golly,” on a college campus in 1976. I don’t use the word golly anymore, and today, I don’t use the word awesome. I try to avoid trendy names and look for unique adjectives. I like to be different and not follow the crowd.
Come to think of it, that guy was unique. One time he came over to the bench where I was studying under the oaks. He was wearing linen rust-colored drawstring pants with a loose open-necked matching shirt, accessorized with a puka shell choker. It was a cross between hippie dude and India Kurta Pajama guy. And since he was a track athlete at the college, he wore his Nikes. (At that time, Nike was a garage business in Oregon and he got comped shoes — he even got a pair made for him in purple suede.) Anyway, I was not attracted to his attire, but he had an air of confidence and uniqueness.

I’m not sure what words were popular exclamations in 1976. But growing up, I heard a number of unique, unusual phrases from my dad. He said, “what the sam hill?” or “crappysbang” or “hells bells” or “shit or dear” or “shit, shit, shit.” I’m like my dad. I loved “Bewitched” as a young girl, but never cared for the “oh my stars.” Occasionally I have caught myself saying “holy cow,” but that may be offensive to those who believe in a holy cow. I’ve said “crap” and some of my dad’s favorites. My mom never wanted us to use the word “crap,” but I think we may have said, “oh crap” some of the time.

When I was in junior high school, we said “bitchen” — my dad didn’t like that word. But it was scrawled across my yearbooks by my friends. It was quite a compliment to be called “bitchen”  — “she’s a bitchen girl.” Yea, totally acceptable.

I read a book, one of my funny favorite books, “Three Men in a Boat, To Say Nothing of The Dog.” It was written in England in 1889 by Jerome K. Jerome. No kidding that is his name. I was surprised by the little exclamations common in that era — things like:  oh drat, oh bother, it’s jolly funny, fancy that, chucklehead.

Of course, I’ve heard that words like Golly, Gee, For Goodness Sakes, are euphemisms for using the name God, but granted, many may be calling on God when they use His name in an exclamatory way. That’s fine. Dennis Prager says from his Jewish Hebrew perspective, saying, “Oh my God” is not the same as taking the name of God in vain. He says the verb isn’t “to take” but is really “to carry” the name of God.

Not all sins are equal. Some are worse than others. The worst one of all? Committing evil in the name of God. This commandment is often misunderstood because it’s mistranslated. It’s not concerned with saying God’s name “in vain” like “God, did I have a terrible day at the office!” It’s about using God’s name in the commission of evil. We see this today when Islamists invoke God’s name while they murder innocent people. (Do Not Misuse God’s Name, Dennis Prager)

And I agree with that, but I also don’t want to throw God’s name around for nothing. In an ideal situation, we perform ordinances in the name of God because it has efficacy; it has power. I believe there is power in a word if you have reached that level of spirituality.  So, for me, I don’t want to use the names of God in vain — and I interpret that to mean vain as in “a useless attempt, producing no results.” — it has no power, it’s useless. For example, “She made a vain attempt to clean up after the children.” In other words, the cleaning-up action did not work. I believe that whenever we mutter a prayer, repetitiously — even with the sacramental prayers — it can be in vain — it can be taking the name of the Lord in vain — without power, faith, or meaning. Somehow, we have come to think that taking the name of God in vain is about swearing. But how often do we take his name upon our lips in a routine way, without any thought or power?

Perhaps this is why the Israelites did not write the name of God and instead wrote the Tetragrammaton יהוה‎ (YHWH) and often written in English G_d. In early times, Jewish scribes treated the name of God with great sanctity and would not write it because they believed it too holy. YHWH is the name of Jehovah in Hebrew. Its pronunciation has been lost. In fact, in the Bible, we have “I am” as a name for God. Because of this, we don’t know how to pronounce the name of God or Jehovah. Perhaps we should not be offended when people say “oh God” because that is not the real name for God. The pronunciation of His name is hidden.

Ok, so you need an exclamation, now and then–Drat? I don’t care for the word “fetch,” which seems to have come out of Idaho/Mormonville and seems to refer to something you would say to your dog after throwing a stick or a ball.  “What the heck?” –yea kind of a Utah/Mormon phrase. Well, fancy that, it’s jolly funny.

 

Photos of Occidental College, where I completed my bachelor’s degree in biochemistry in the late 70s.  And met the guy I married and had five kids.

My Oxy student ID, 1975

Occidental College

Occidental College quad where I used to study between classes.