Interjection Junction

I have to admit that I was never an enormous fan of Schoolhouse Rock back in the day; it appeared on ABC and I always thought their kids' shows & cartoons were somewhat cheesy. CBS (channel 10 back in those days!) was the home of the Bugs Bunny/Roadrunner hour -- hence the home of me, as well. I am on record as stating the cartoon universe belongs to Bugs and everyone else is just drawn into it. He's the king of 'em all, y'all.

No, I had to get my grammar education the old-fashioned way: by diagramming sentences. I really don't remember anything about diagramming sentences at this late date; I have convinced myself that I was really proficient at it, but I suspect that may just be the standard memory trick we all play on ourselves.

Regardless, my zeal for grammar (and punctuation, and spelling, and syntax) remains to this day. In fact, I'm pretty much the Spanish Inquisition of grammar etc. Well, OK, like most of the universe, when using Instant Message I suffer a strange paralysis when it comes time to capitalize and punctuate... but other than that, don't come in here with any of that weak stuff.

Today I'm musing about interjections: any member of a class of words expressing emotion, distinguished in most languages by their use in grammatical isolation, as Hey! Oh! Ouch! Ugh! The problem for me is that I feel like most of the really "popular" interjections related to frustration, anger, distress, etc. seem to be... not a great idea to use around small children. I hasten to add that I'm altogether aware that language you wouldn't use in front of children is most likely language to eschew entirely.

In fact, as pointed out by a favorite book of mine (regrettably I can't lay hands on it right now), the majority of our common exclamations -- even "darn" -- are actually euphemisms for words you can't use in polite company. Wow, I just thought: that's really an archaic concept, isn't it? I should say, words you wish people wouldn't use in polite company, or any company. And I have to be doubly careful, because I frequently stress to the kids that they shouldn't look for sneaky ways to say bad words without really saying them ("poopy" is one of the ones they try to sneak in).

This is slightly off the point -- at least I think it is; no one knows better than I how challenging it can be to deduce my actual point -- but I'm reminded of a recent occurrence here. My son was having one of his occasional meltdowns the other day, during which he quite often screams the angriest, rudest words he can think of. I had more or less tuned him out when I realized he was shouting, "Did you hear me? I said 'the S-H word'!" Alarmed, I did a mental rewind to discover he had hollered, "shut up!" which of course is not acceptable, but still a relief compared to what I thought he meant.

And as a bonus, a digression from the digression: why is it that 'be quiet', 'hush', and 'close your mouth' are acceptable, but 'shut up' is a capital offense? Don't they all mean I don't want to hear anything you say?

Anyway (rejoining the blog, already in progress), I'm kind of casting around for an expression to compensate for the fact that I (a) get frustrated frequently and (b) talk to myself a lot. I need something brief, with sufficient explosive consonants. I still remember an episode of the original Bill Cosby Show in which his basketball team got in trouble for using bad language on the court; by the end of the episode, one of the players managed to substitute "Fudge cake!" I use that occasionally, but usually kind of ironically & not in the heat of battle. And I've tried "dagnabbit', but I always feel a bit like Walter Brennan.

For some other possibilities, check out #6o in this list ... or perhaps #17 here.

I may just have to coin my own word... but of course, if you have any suggestions, feel free to pass them along.