Murgatroyd

     Oh, never mind why our conversation turned lightly to Gadzookie, the nephew, cousin, or son of Godzilla in cartoons of my younger days.  (And no, we will not be considering what this means to the world that Godzilla must, therefore. have had siblings, uncles, or a wife.  Other people have already discussed these things.  OUR question was how the little fellow got his name.

     Well, neighbor, “Gadzooks!”, it turns out, is a bygone bit of profanity in which someone was swearing “God’s hooks!”, a reference to the nails used in the Crucifixion.  It is thus akin to the equally picturesque “Zounds!” which was a means of expressing surprise with a reference to “God’s wounds!” (Logically, thus, it should be pronounced to rhyme with wounds, and not with sounds, which is the way anyone with sense says the word.)

     The whole question of profanity has been largely ignored over the last few decades, as we in the English-speaking world have become more addicted to obscenity.  THAT deals with words referring to body processes, which are far more popular than those which were taken as a mockery, or at least a failure to revere, religious references.

     Yes, when Tweety Pie’s Granny (or Dwanny) exclaimed “Heavens to Betsy!”, she was, technically, swearing, and would once have had her mouth washed out, the same as those British gentlemen in the movies who would cry “Gad!” or “By Jove!”  (God, and a reference to Jupiter, one of the few popular references to stray from Christianity in its sacrilegious naughtiness.)

     Even by the 1940s, such expressions were becoming quaint, with “Gol durn it” being something your old Uncle Zeke in the country said in place of “God damn it”.  People DO still use some related phrases, though it, like any cussing, is a matter of habit.  Those of us who do not use the phrases can only stand back and wonder at why some folks cry “Gosh damn it” and others shout “God darn it!”

     Even Walt Disney made fun of such antique cussing, though it was not TOO obvious, since his movies were going out to the broad spectrum of viewers.  But in 1940, there WAS some pushback when Pinocchio gave us Jiminy Cricket, whose name was a popular shout of surprise or exasperation used in place of “Jesus Christ!”  The wonderfully subversive folk song The Blue-Tail Fly used a similar euphemism in the chorus “Jimmy Crack Corn, and I don’t care.”  Yes, your grandfather, when he cries of “Criminentlies!” or “Jiminy Christmas!”, is also dealing in such veiled profanity.

     It worked the other way as well: one did not refer lightly to the infernal regions and their work, so we indulged in many a “Dash It All” or “Dang It” id Mom or Aunt Booney were listening.  “Hot Diggety” was used for “Hot Damn” the same way.  (I have not investigated whether a hot damn is stronger than a mere damn; wouldn’t ANY damned thing get pretty hot?)  And you know, I am sure, why some folks exclaim “Heckfire!”  It is because the bad guys remained censorable long after even radio and TV censors started allowing the word “God” to be used.  This is why those of us who played with pocket calculators once upon a time, like to type in 7734.0 and then flip the screen over.  And some were reprimanded for it, even as their parents listened to songs about “Jumping Jack Flash” on the radio.

     Which is going a long way to explain why those chaps in “A Christmas Carol” noted that Old Scratch had got his own at last: the Devil, whose name was not mentioned in polite conversation, had claimed a miserable soul.

     Thank you for not guessing that’s where we were going with this.  To the Dickens.