Re: CHAT: Murgatroyd (was somehow Re: Lenition)

Dan Sulani wrote:
>    Anyhow, this thread's got me thinking. "Heavens to  M" seems to
>be a pretentious takeoff on the more prosaic (American?)
>"Heavens to Betsy!" (or could Betsy be an intentionally
>less pretentious version of Murgatroid?).
>Still, it sounds to me like some sort of euphemism.
I'd guess that "Betsy" is the original. I have heard/read somewhere that it
was euphemizing _something_, but forget what exactly.   Gosh, Darn/Drat,
Heck, etc. instead of God, Damn, Hell.  Fudge. Old "Zounds" (God's wounds).
British Bloody (God's blood) was, I recall, severely proscribed 50 years ago
or so.

At a family gathering way back then, we kids got a big laugh when we heard
an adult (woman, yet) go "Oh ssshh......sugar!"

>The only other phrase I can think of, offhand, of the
>"X to Y" type is "honest to goodness". meaning "genuine."
Disguising "honest to God".
Ah, dear dead days, when "you don't say that in front of the children", and
children used Naughty Words at their peril........

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