Minced oaths in media

It is common to find minced oaths in literature and media. Writers often include minced oaths instead of profanity in their writing so that they do not offend audiences or incur censorship.

W. Somerset Maugham referred to this problem in his 1919 novel The Moon and Sixpence, where he admitted:

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 sometimes put minced oaths into the mouths of characters who swear a lot, as a way of depicting a part of their behaviour that would be unconvincing not to represent, but also avoiding the use of swear words which would be considered unsuitable for children to read.

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 strangers in my adjective premises! I won't, by adjective and substantive! ... Give me, says Bark, my adjective trousers!

The term dickens itself, probably from the surname, became a minced oath when referring to the devil.

Norman Mailer's novel The Naked and the Dead uses "fug" in place of "fuck" throughout.

Mystery writer Fran Rizer deploys "kindergarten cussin'" in her Callie Parrish series, where the main character can be heard muttering, "Dalmatian!" and "Shih Tzu!"

In Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time series, characters use oaths such as "flaming" or "blood and ashes" or the interjection "light" in the same strength as a curse word, without having to print swear words.

Science Fiction writer, John Brunner, in novels such as The Shockwave Rider and Stand on Zanzibar, uses 'Shiv' and 'slit' to refer to male and female body parts (and sometimes males and females) respectively.

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