10 replacements for swear words

Swearing is an interesting phenomenon.  When you grow up, there is a point in your life that you feel somehow just a little bit older after your first swear.  That swear didn't just spill off of your tongue like it does now, it came out with trepidation like a timid squirrel looking for a nut.  You thought about it and instead of your stand by pseudo-swear, you blasted out with your first honest to goodness real swear.  It felt liberating and yet somehow a little bit wrong.  You wondered if anyone that mattered heard you.  You know.  A sibling, Mom, Dad, Neighbors, God, anyone that might disapprove of your recent baby-step into adulthood. This blog is about the words you said before you started shooting off live rounds.

10.  Gosh - Some think this comes from a different exclamation 'Land o Goshen!'  A Biblical reference.  Most seem to think of it as a replacement for taking Gods name or designation in vain.  Another Biblical reference.  It's a sin to take God's name in vain, but nobody said anything about his nickname right?

9. Darn - Often used in conjunction with Gosh, Darn is probably one of the most used pseudo swears there is.  Swearing is a matter of degree and frequency if someone never swears or produces anything in an exclamatory way, ANY word used in such a fashion can be assumed to be a swear.  Growing up, when my mom said 'Darn it!'  everyone knew she meant it!




8. Son of a Gun - This swear from Old England lends us its use comes in exchange of a harsher term that insults both the individual and the individual's mother.  The actual origin is very interesting and worth a look.

7. Consairn it - Prospector talk. Consairn it was likely developed for television
and movies back in an age when tv and movies reflected how we hoped to see ourselves instead of who we are, or the lowest common denominator of who we are.  Another great prospector swear (heard only by their trusty mule) was Dad Gum.

6. Golly Gee - Favorite of 'the Beave' Golly Gee can be separated or put together for extra emphasis or used separately in separate circumstance.  Golly used alone indicates amazement or disbelief.  Gee is used to express amazement or sadness. Used together it is usually a word of dismay ex: 'I'm Grounded?!  Golly Gee'

5. Crap - A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.  This pseudo-swear is mostly used to describe someones posessions. For some reason the harsh counterpart to this word ends up being one of the first real swears that might usher us into feeling older than we probably are.







4. Fiddle dee dee - Scarlett O'hare used this one not as a swear, but more a dismissive term.  It doesn't really have much play today and yet, if you tried to use it, I'm sure that you would be laughed at.  Probably louder if you were male.

3. Fetch -  Awww Fetch.  Oddly enough I've only heard this used by the more pious folks wishing to voice their disdain of a situation.  Not unlike darn, fetch seems to have had its start in the early 80's and moved into near obscurity by the year 2000.  If you know someone that uses that term regularly, they probably went to BYU.

2. Racksa Fricksen Ricka Sicken Rack- Most of the other entries are easily recognized, this one may be a bit harder.  That's because it's a translation from what I think I heard as a kid watching cartoons.  When the road runner thwarted Wile E. Coyote, He would wander off muttering something akin to that under his breath.  Translation?  none.  This swear comes straight out of the mind of Mel Blanc.  I still say it from time to time.











1. Fudge - The mother of all swear words, except it isn't fudge.  If you've seen A Christmas Story, you need no more explanation.  If you haven't.  I recommend it.







Eventually I will have written about everything.  Some days I feel like I'm pretty close.  Come back in 15 days or so and see if I can pull something else out of my...brain.

10 Things you'll tell your teenager that you never thought you'd say

It's inevitable.  We all age.  With that, we hope that we get a little smarter or at least wiser.  In order to help our kids not make the mistakes we give them the nuggets of our wisdom to help them with life.  We also show them in our exasperation things that they are doing that really bug us and for them to cut it out!  What it all really helps them with is finding things that we told them that they swear they will never tell their kids.  HA.  This list is full of the things that you heard and have since relayed to your kids.  Some of them  you hated to hear and with more than a twinge of hypocrisy, you have told your spawn the self same things while simultaneously breathing a whisper of regret and new found understanding to your parents...

10.  Turn that down! - It's interesting.  Our appreciation of loud music tends to increase if it's music we like to listen to.  As we age, many of us tend to loose some of our hearing.  You would think that we would be more easy-going for loud things because we can barely hear them as it is.  We aren't.  We were told to turn our sounds down.  And so, they will be told as well.

9. You need to pay more attention! - It's funny that we think that everything we tell our children is both interesting as well as informative.  If we only had school to go to again, maybe we would pay better attention and make better use of our training years!  If you ever get to go to a professional seminar, you will quickly remember just how much ADD you had as a kid.  You might have even more now.

8. You make a better door than a window! - Or, Get out of the way!  or Hey I'm watching TV!  While this is a short term request to get someone out of the way, it becomes a long term lesson is being aware of your surroundings.  Kids have an interesting way of thinking that the whole world revolves around them.  This quick statement seems to help disabuse them of that notion.

7.  Now is the time to prepare for your future! - Great statement.  Because it's ALWAYS true!  As adults we tend to regret the wasted time of our youth.  When we see our own young waste their time we wish they would benefit from our wisdom and not waste it!  The truth is, we can look at our own lives and see so much time that is wasted.  If we are honest about our chastisements, we should first look at ourselves and lead the way.

6. Do you know how much that costs?! - Kids only know that they like things and they want things.  Some people never grow out of this.  There are other people that mistakenly think that THEY were never like that as a child and wonder why their own kids have this insatiable hunger to spend money they don't have.  Don't you know that's what this country is built on?

5.  Why don't you answer me? - Kids seem to be conveniently deaf.  If they are interested in what they are doing and want plausible deniability when they are asked why they didn't answer, they will claim some kind of strange deafness.  This deafness does not, however, extend to their cellphones, which they can hear at any distance in the house (making the broad assumption that the cellphone is somehow more than 1 foot away from them at any point in time).

4.  I know you don't believe it, but I was a teenager once. - Kids don't believe you were ever a teenager.  You can show them pictures.  You can tell them stories.  They will nod patiently and laugh at your young antics, but it will be impossible for them to visualize you as a teenager.  The best you can hope for is that they see you as currently irresponsible.

3.  Go to sleep! - Everyone knows that children are created out of our old boundless energy.  That's why we are so tired all the time.  As a result, they have no idea why they need to go to sleep, they aren't tired.  Partly, they may not be tired, and partly they can't identify when they are tired.  When my son was around 3 he was falling asleep in the car and started getting mad.  When asked why he was mad he said 'My eyes don't work!'  Talk about sleep denial.  Now, un-alarmed, he will sleep until noon or later.


2.  Try it!  It's an acquired taste! - As Mom and Dad we want to expand the world of experience that our children have.  We also want them to not be picky eaters.  This is different than some parents that do the age old 'you aren't moving until you finish what is on your plate.'  I've heard of some extreme cases where kids were left to eat the food no matter how old it got.  This is a good way to give your kids eating disorders.

1.  I feel sorry for your future husband/wife. - Usually offered when you stumble upon the cave of your young spawn.  The disarray is not only disgusting, but amazing.  Now I'm the last one to talk about clean areas as I'm a bit of a clutter guy.  But I do keep the common living areas as clean as I can since we all have to live there.  I heard my mom mention more than a few times how she pitied my future bride.  Now my bride pities herself.




Enjoy the summer and Happy Fathers Day!  3 x 5 and we'll come back live.

10 things that parents really fear (that aren't as serious as death)

Being a parent is an interesting prospect.  You never really are prepared for it, and once you've done it, the best you can do is look back and second guess most of the things you've done.  After all of it, we end up surviving our own parents.  As a parent, we have a lot of concerns for our kids.  Of course the worst fear you have is that your kids may die prematurely.  You honestly hope to be buried by your kids.  At times it happens the other way and that is tragic.  The following are fears besides that.

10.  You're WHAT?!?  -  That's right, pregnant.  Now most parents really long to be grandparents, they secretly feel like maybe they can get a chance to use their vast experience and knowledge in raising a new stock of youth.  All of this of course is if it occurs within it's correct sphere and time.  Sometime during your child's tenure in high school is NOT that time.  These days it only matters a little if you are a guy or a girl.  It used to be much more important.  The problem is, we know as a parent just how much we wanted to go down the trail that ends up in pregnancy, and we honestly don't think you have it in you to behave yourself.  We HOPE you do, but we really aren't sure.

9.  Those are your FRIENDS?! -  We really are afraid that you might fall in with a bad crowd.  We all know that friends are both a matter of choice as well as a matter of chance.  If there is not a good crowd to fall in with, then there is only a bad one.  What we rarely if ever think is that our kids are in fact the bad crowd.  If all of your children's friends seem like a good influence on your child, your child might be the bad crowd.  Sorry.

8. That's your signature? - The contract.  Binding to all responsible humans.  I remember my first contract.  It was with the Science Fiction Book Club.  Whenever I didn't send back one of their little book of the month cards, they would quickly send and bill me for whatever hack novel they could ink to pulp.  It only happened a couple of times, but when It did I didn't like it.  Later I would sign my name to things like credit cards and cars. An ever increasing array of responsibility.  My parents likely feared for my well being.  But I survived.

7. Oh, I'm sure my little darling couldn't have done that. - This one works both ways.  You see, we really fear that our little angels are going to somehow be the targets of mockery and derision because they are clearly superior to the other, we can be charitable and call them 'Children', in that sorry vignette from Lord of the Flies they call a school.  At the first sign of trouble we are likely to march right into the principal's office and demand satisfaction on behalf of our brood.  On the other hand we could also be on the other side of this coin.  It could be our own little Fauntleroy that is causing grief and anguish among his peers.  The principal is calling us because he has irate parents on the other side of his desk that would like to meet your child for a duel with pistols or rapiers.  In either case.  We don't want any part of it.  We would like our kids to just keep their heads down, do their studies and be perceived as somewhat above average.

6. People aren't as bad as you think - Stranger Danger!  We really have a lot on our hands with the news these days.  We really have a paranoia about our kids and other people in the world.  Is it valid?  In some cases yes.  But on the other hand I remember on more than a few occasions as a child coming across strangers that were very nice and mindful of me.  I've lived in a few places in the country and I never ran across an abductor.  Are people worse now than they were then?  likely not.  Is news more pervasive than it was then?  Definitely.  I'm not saying that there aren't dangerous people out there.  There are.  And we as parents have enough in the realm of irrational fears that if there is some rationality to our fears we will take it all the way.  Keep your kids safe, and remember, more people than not are decent and hopefully will help you and your kids watch out for the ones that aren't.

5. Their parent's were probably idiots. - Whew!  your kids didn't fall in with a bad crowd, that's a relief.  But next on the list of parental panics is that they fall in with a stupid crowd.  Stupid kids in groups are such a powerful force for the obviously stupid that they can be more dangerous than bad kids.  We just hope that our kids have friends that are roughly as smart as our kids.  Assuming our kids are kind of smart.  Unless they are the dumb ones, then you want them to tie in with a smart crowd and hope it will rub off.

4. If I wanted to look in the mirror, I'd go to the bathroom - Kids making the same mistakes you made as a kid are so horrible it's maddening.  How DARE they make the same mistakes?!  Showing you to be stupid while being the fruit of your loins.  You watch them do things in a similar manner and you start to feel uncomfortable.  You wish the event would just hurry up and be over so you don't have to relive your own mistakes in the vivid color of the current instead of the age stained monochrome of memory.

3. Plenty of fish in the sea - Oh that first heart break.  You don't want your kids to have to experience it, but odds are they will.  You hurt for them, but you know there is nothing you can do.  You can try to talk to them, you can try to reason with them, but the ache will still be there.  You will tell them things that were equally ineffective with you, but you will tell them anyway.  You wish that your own love would be enough to keep your kids from the pain of new love, but it isn't and won't ever be.

2. Wow, applied ancient languages with a minor in pet clothing design. - As your kids get older you try to help them decide on a career path.  You steer them towards professions that will give them fulfillment in both career and finance.  Instead their interests lead them to things that at best could be described as a hobby that might make money if good fortune breaks wind in their direction.   You see time wasted and financial struggles and there is very little you can do once they leave the starting gate but hope they don't run back into the starting gate and into their room.  At 32.  Still trying to find themselves.

1. You eat with that mouth? - This is really mortifying.  When you hear your kids swear it's like listening to an idiot with a large cat and a chalkboard.  The worse the swear, the more amazing the discomfort.  I have told my children that swearing is an adult game and should only be done by people that have had actual hardship in their lives, not just perceived.   Honestly, the situation doesn't matter.  You really can't stand hearing your kids swear.  Particularly if they can't do it right.


Well, That's it.  I hope your leap day was a good one.  It gave me and extra day to come up with this.  That will teach you to add an extra day to the year!

top 10 excuses from kids.

I have several theories about life.  One of them is, if you have what you think is a really good idea.  Look it up on the internet.  If it really is a good idea, someone is already doing it and better than you would be doing it.

Another theory is that whatever experience I am having in life is actually a common experience with a lot of other people.  I don't think people have really different experiences.  Sure we are all different, but the truth is, in a particular region of the world many people live very similar lives.

I have teenagers now.  It seems that this is a common thread that these teenagers will probably lie to you.  Well, maybe not YOU, but other people's teenagers lie to them.  Alright since they aren't very good at it, instead of calling it a lie.  Lets call it teenager excuses.  Excuses are like strategies in football or any other sport.  If you go to a particular strategy too many times, your opponent will call you on it and you will pay the price.  Any resemblance to excuses given by political leaders is PURELY coincidental.

10.  This Traffic! - Traffic has been a time honored excuse ever since the invention of the wheel.  Used once in a while it's the kind of thing that can happen to anyone.  As a teenager you have to know that you really only get to use this excuse once.

9.  I did my homework at school/I'm all caught up - Back in my day, you could say this and be relatively certain that you would not be called on it until your grades came back.  Thanks to technology, parents are apprised of educational malfeasance nearly as soon as it occurs so your day of judgement comes a lot sooner.  Parents that are even marginally on the ball will not let their kids get too far away from the mark.

8.  I lost track of time. - Who hasn't done this?  Kids are notoriously bad at tracking time.  This may be semi-legitimate, but it's an important skill to learn.  As you grow older, you start equating the amount of time it takes to execute certain activities.  Thanks to this I have realized that it is impossible to do anything in 5 minutes that is worthwhile except maybe get the mail.

7. All the kids have problems with X - This is an interesting turn of play that the teen uses.  Lets not make this about me, lets make this about the broad populous.  If they could, they would take a lineup of murderers and con-men to be compared to.  As it is, they only have the other meaty bell curve performers in class to size up to.  This seems like a good defense and it is when you consider where they probably got it from.  Remember saying: ' No parent would let their kid do that!'  Well, add some spice and mix it and you get this one made for the kids.




6. I handed that in! - I could have sworn!  Really!  I know I handed that in! They figure that they got missed or otherwise omitted from the regular line up.  I've used this one in my past.  It never worked.  At least 1/2 the time I didn't really know if I actually handed it in or not, but best to err on the side that makes me look better.

5. That teacher has it in for me - That teacher hates me, as do all educators that grade me in a sub-standard fashion.  Anything is preferable to the alternative which is that maybe I don't care for studying.  Maybe I don't like the teacher.  Maybe I'm the problem.  I don't like that option.  The truth is, you have to work with all kinds of people including the people that you don't like.  If you can work such that nobody can tell if you are working with someone you either like or dislike, then you are a professional.

4.  I promise I won't ask for anything else - Wow, that's such a lousy promise.  Usually proffered when the child knows there is a crescent roll's chance at Sunday dinner of getting whatever it is that they want.  Parent's don't actually even hear this plea, except to possibly remark how much the child wants said object for use later for a birthday or Christmas.

3.  Hackers got into my computer! - So you have found something of objectionable nature on a cell-phone or perhaps computer?  Well clearly your little angel had nothing to do with it.  It was that one group...um...yeah.  that anonymous group.  they got onto my computer and put those things there!!! I have no idea how or why!  This wouldn't even make the cut if I hadn't seen a politician use the self same excuse.  What are we teaching our children anyway?!




2.  Not mine! - This is the denial that is most often heard in it's entirety after asking 'who's dishes are these that are left out?'  The bad news is, one of your kids is lying.  The good news is, it's only one of them.  Of course you yourself might have forgotten to clean up your place, so be sure before hurling wild accusations about.

1.  I forgot. - Leaders of countries down to the youngest child can use this old saw with near impunity.  After all, who hasn't forgotten things from time to time?  Who's to say you didn't this time?  This is the hardest one for the parents to rebuff but a good answer that usually comes back is 'When the police asks me what I think the speed limit is and I say I forgot, it won't keep me from getting a ticket'








There it is.  You may or may not have heard these.  After another 15 days, it won't matter ;)

Top 10 Beautiful Things

Beauty. It has been said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. This could not be more true. If beauty were absolute, then only 5% of people would actually get together and beer sales would be surprisingly stagnant.

Beauty is defined as the following:
a characteristic of a person, place, object, or idea that provides a perceptual experience of pleasure, meaning, or satisfaction.

That definition is so broad that you could make beauty out to be nearly anything. Anything BUT an insult. Nothing described as beautiful in earnest ever took offense. On the other hand Beautiful can be used at the height of Irony. Take my last weekend playing tennis for example. I hit such a bad shot that I yelled 'Beautiful!'. All knew my meaning for what it was. So I started thinking about beauty because it appears to be something worth looking for and having attributed to yourself. So I will attempt to list my 10 beautiful things. Be forewarned, this list will not include my wife, my kids, my mom, or anyone else that I think is beautiful because I am limiting this list and therefore my liability to places, objects and ideas that I think are beautiful.

1. photographs - There is something about really old pictures that has a haunting beauty. These are people that are long dead and buried, but the photograph was such a novelty and such a great way of preserving that moment in time that it is amazingly beautiful. I see pictures of my mom as a new mom in the early 70's and when I see the style of dress and hair etc, I used to just laugh, but now I look at them and it simply captures the essence of that time. Then I look at pictures of great grandparents and distant relatives that have no idea that I would spring forth from their lineage. These pictures were not cheap and they were not instant. Cameras now are everywhere and recordings of our every coming and going are available on demand, but the beauty of the simple photograph still remains even though it has become much more pedestrian. To say a picture is worth a thousand words is really underselling a picture.




2. Communism - What? Mark is a pinko commie? No of course not, not at all. But the concept of communism is really beautiful. The idea that all people would communally and willingly give up all of their possessions to make all of society a greater good. The concept that we would all willingly care for the poor and indigent and provide our talents with no more thought than to simply have our needs met. beautiful. The idea that everyone would work as hard as they could and never avoid labor to commit their substance to the good of all is simple and beautiful. Of course humans are not built in this fashion. In fact, we can only be counted on for one thing and that is to take what we can when we can. Sure there are some exceptions, but where the idea of Communism is beautiful, the practice of communism is simply corrupt and abhorrent. No matter where it is tried, the laborer is reduced to a group of people dedicated to working as little as possible because they know that their needs will be met. Those in overseeing positions are reduced to greedy money grubbing power hungry jerks that are only looked at with ire. Beautiful in concept because it embodies what the best traits of humanity are. But horrid in practice because it forgets to take into account our failings and our drive. I think if there were no shortage of anything and everyone lived forever, communism would work out pretty well. Then again, if you can live forever and you don't need anything, what wouldn't work?

3. Children - Kids are truly beautiful. Before we, and society, have trained them to become the neurotic scheming false adults that we all are, children are pure and without guile. They assume that everything is done for their best interests and whenever small children see that they can help or laugh or smile, they do. A child's laugh is as genuine a noise as exists. It comes out because something is genuinely funny to them without a care as to weather or not it is funny to anyone else. They haven't learned to build a laugh that is socially acceptable yet. They haven't learned that some things shouldn't be funny even if they are. Exceptionally beautiful.



4. Lies - No, Mark, Lies are ugly dark things that are the exact opposite of beauty. I suppose it depends on your definition. A lie is anything that creates a perception in the observer that is contrary to the reality of that thing or event. It is designed to deceive. In many many many cases we really do want to be deceived. The simplest of things would be fine artwork. We are given a picture on a canvass that looks to be in 3 dimensions even though it is clearly only in 2. This is a lie, and one we all appreciate more the better it is executed. Of course other lies are less clear, but lets look at Disneyland. The whole park is built on the most successful telling of a series of lies, and yet we pay very real money to be lied to for a day. The better the lie, the more we like it. I'm sorry, in many instances, the lie in the correct sphere, is beautiful.

5. Certain songs - When you turn on the radio and hear a song that you haven't heard in ages and it immediately takes you to a time and place that is anchored forever to that song. It is a thing of beauty. Floods of memories return that you never thought you would ever recall. The only thing more powerful than music when magically recalling events would be the smells of those same events. To digress to Disney once again, whenever I hear the Disney theme song of the 70's 'When you wish upon a Star' I am immediately whisked back to the living room of my house in Arkansas. Where most Sunday Evenings we would watch the Wonderful World of Disney. What a great memory. Sometimes the music is much more memorable the then accompanying smell. And still, I believe this is why there are very few memories that involve music and chili cook offs.



6. The middle of a perfect vacation - My dearest hope and wish for all of my friends is that some day they have the best vacation of their lives. I think by definition they all will eventually have it. The best thing that happens on the perfect vacation is that you stop for just a moment and realize that you are perfectly at ease and perfectly happy with your surroundings. You have few if any cares and you are appreciating the moment for what it is. You take a picture, you write a line or two in a vacation journal and then the moment has vanished. But that single moment will carry you for many many years as you look back on a great time with family and friends.

7. You or your team wins - If you ever have had the chance to compete in anything you are of course familiar with the concept of winning and losing. One is always good and the other is always bad. There is no gray area. it is perfectly black and white. There is a winner and a looser. Many times the events that decide the winner or the loser are somewhat cloudy. But if you ever have the opportunity to practice hard and dedicate yourself to a particular sporting event and you come to the end and by your skill and just the right amount of luck you find yourself on the top of that event. I'd rather be lucky than good? That's crap, you might need a little luck to win, but if you aren't good, all luck will get you is a free small fry at MickyDees. Winners aren't made with luck, they take advantage of it. For that brief moment, you or your team are in fact the best at that event. My wife would say 'who cares, why does it matter in the least?' The winners care, and the losers care and they wouldn't work so hard to win an event if it weren't a beautiful feeling. This isn't to say that there isn't virtue in losing and there can't be shame in winning. Of course that's possible. Just as anything that is beautiful can be perverted into something that is ugly.

8. Culmination of hard work and planning - This is an analog to winning in team sports. But with this beauty, it is self contained. The beauty of a job well done. If you work really hard to create something and you plan and work and eventually come up with a masterpiece that only you can appreciate in its intricacy and difficulty. That is a beautiful moment. This master work can be in any field of endeavor and you will know it when you have done it. It will usually take more work than anyone would normally put into such an event, and it will probably go largely unappreciated but by the very few. While I hack away at these top 10 lists every 2 weeks or so I still think of the book that I have stopped writing. Perhaps one day I will work on it again.





9. A great coincidence - It's nearing the end of my top 10 list and we haven't seen anything about babies being born or marriage or any of that. Well here it is. The beauty of the great coincidence. Well THATS not very romantic. Of course it is. What is more romantic than the chance meeting that will eventually create the most amazing highs and lows in your life? No matter how your relationship ends it will create a series of events that will effect you forever. The chance meeting because you forgot you needed to return a book. The friend of a friend that introduced you even though the friend had a crush on you. The off handed remark that you never thought meant anything but instead meant everything. All of these great coincidences have created a meeting story for a couple and much more. The events of nearly every birth have a great coincidence story attached to them. If you take those two events out of your life, you can still point to great coincidences and say 'wow, if I had left 2 minutes sooner, that accident would have been me' and they are beautiful in their own way. They seem to crystallize something that has very little chance of ever happening again, but for some reason always will.

10. Chaos - What is beautiful about chaos? the same thing that is beautiful about order just the opposite. There is beauty in balance and harmony. There is also beauty in discord and chaos. sometimes we look at our lives that we try every day to add balance and order to and it never quite measures up. You go out into nature and for some reason everything is exactly as it should be and is completely chaotic. There is a lot of theories to this beauty in chaos (I think it's called chaos theory, duh). But my theory is that we appreciate balance and harmony because it is obvious that we create it. there is very little in the way of balance in nature but rather a balancing act. Plants and animals ebb and flow in a grand dance that could not be more beautiful. If you have the opportunity to see the Planet earth series by the BBC you will probably get a better understanding of what I mean, because I'm really not doing it justice.

I'm sure you have many other things that you think of as beautiful. These were mine. I suppose my point is that it's pretty enjoyable to appreciate those elements in your life because if you don't, you're really missing out on a lot.

Thanks for coming by!