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Adventists are typically not swearing folk, and have a more extensive list of "No-no" words than most, we'd say. All the usual profanities and four-letter suspects are banned, of course. Any phrases that mention God or Jesus are off-limits, too. But so is anything that smacks of God or Jesus' name, including: "gee"; "golly"; "gosh"; "OMG" (yes, even just saying the letters). Anything with the slightest association to any of the above is also verboten: "bloody"; "crap"; "damn"'; "dang"; "for Pete's sake"; "for goodness' sake"; "good heavens"; "good Lord"; "hell." The list only seems to grow over the years; recently we've become aware of a campaign to stamp out "oh my goodness" as well. Still, Adventists are human. Here are some of the words we've heard them use to let off some verbal steam. (Photo by yoshiffles via flickr)
You forgot one: “Oh, sugar!” – an expression of annoyance, alarm, disgust, shock, self-disdain, or dismay. Virtually synonymous with, but arguably more intense than, “oh, shoot.”
I watched Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam. DAG NABIT!
I used it as a “safe” swear word. Still use it. My wife asked me where I got this Dag Nabit thing. She was raised an SDA, no Saturday morning cartoons for her.
Such boring conversations and exclamations . . . we gotta do better than that.
How about, “Oh Devil!” or “Oh Satan!”
We can’t take the Lord’s name in vain, but no reason not to take the other guy’s name in vain!
Fugeddaboutit!! Speak plain English. Did anyone in the Bible swear?? Yikes!! Woe is me!
People may have sworn in the bible, are you also assuming they spoke plain english?
Oh my word, that’s a good list.
Sheesh. Soooo not exclusive to Adventism.
Ye gads
My fav, all-around, context-sensitive expletive. . . “Bless your heart!”
I’ve heard of a professor at an Adventist university who liked to say, “Oh, Pork!”
And regarding “Rats!” There once was an Uncle Arthur’s Bedtime story where a character said that word, and got a good talking-to by an angel (For those who have these tomes, look up “Angel of the Books.”
I thought “Rats” came from Charlie Brown and the Peanuts gang, a pretty safe cartoon for SDA kids. Kids I rolled with used it all the time.
My Lutheran mother said we couldn’t use those words either.
Ho Ho – mostly the US versions. The Aussie ones are even more amusing, given we are a nation of cussers with brit origins – I always remember my grumpy SDA minister grandpa (of germanic origin – boy you wanna understand germain swears) and his work arounds – part Aussie coloquialisms – thank goodness I don’t worry about that crap anymore!