Most persons have a sort of craving or instinct to utter a curse of some kind—as a sort of comforting interjection—where there is sufficient provocation; and in order to satisfy this without incurring the guilt, people have invented ejaculations in the form of curses, but still harmless. Most of them have some resemblance in sound to the forbidden word—they are near enough to satisfy the craving, but still far enough off to avoid the guilt: the process may in fact be designated dodging a curse. Hence we have such blank cartridges as begob, begor, by my sowkins, by Jove, by the laws [Lord], by herrings [heavens], by this and by that, dang it, &c.; all of them ghosts of curses, which are very general among our people. The following additional examples will sufficiently illustrate this part of our subject.
The expression the dear knows (or correctly the deer knows), which is very common, is a translation from Irish of one of those substitutions. The original expression is thauss ag Dhee [given here phonetically], meaning God knows; but as this is too solemn and profane for most people, they changed it to Thauss ag fee, i.e. the deer knows; and this may be uttered by anyone. Dia [Dhee] God: fiadh [fee], a deer.
Says Barney Broderick, who is going through his penance after confession at the station, and is interrupted by a woman asking him a question:—'Salvation seize your soul—God forgive me for cursing—be off out of that and don't set me astray!' ('Knocknagow.') Here the substitution has turned a wicked imprecation into a benison: for the first word in the original is not salvation but damnation.
