A few days ago, I commented on Eve's blog making reference to my Mormon faith. She indicated that she had no idea I was a Mormon. I wasn't sure I believed her, because if you went to BYU, live in Orem, Utah, and have five children, it should be pretty clear to which church you claim allegiance. Then I realized the truth: Eve had no idea I was a Mormon because I don't talk like one, at least not very often.As members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, we are strongly encouraged to use clean and intelligent language. In other words, you shouldn't hear a lot of swearing from Mormons.
In an effort to follow the letter of the law, but not necessarily the spirit of the law, non-swearing swear words have been adopted in some Mormon subcultures. For example, crap, shister, shucks, and shoot, replace the crass term for poo. Terms such as flippin and freakin supplant the really bad word. Gosh, goll, and gawh prevent anyone from breaking one of the ten commandments (number three in case you haven't read Exodus 20 lately.) And while their use is sometimes justified since they can be found in the Bible, dang and heck are the generally more acceptable replacements for their Biblical counterparts.
And so if you come out to your driveway on a spring morning to find a bird left its mark on your freshly washed SUV, you could say, "Oh my freak! A flippin bird left crap on my gosh darn car! Dang it all to heck!"
And somehow, many people I know, would absolutely consider this to be "clean and intelligent" language.
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