Sometimes one thing or idea leads to
another. It’s the saving of someone trying to post a blog every week, I can
tell you.
I cited the word “Zounds!” in an article
bemoaning the lack of imagination of much of the obscenity you see on line
these days and looking to the past for colorful expressions.
It’s defined in the dictionary as a
contraction of “God’s wounds,” and yet, somewhat surprisingly, it’s called a mild oath. Reputedly it was first coined
in 1592, an era when religion lent color to speech, especially impassioned
speech.
(Oliver Cromwell was one of the best,
and maybe the best at it. You probably
couldn’t get away with it today, but his “bowels of Christ” number would have
been hard to ignore, whatever your politics. I don’t know that it’s ever been
topped. Winston Churchill had some great lines, though.)
There seems to be some question about proper
pronunciation of the word. The impulse
is to rhyme it with “bounds,” but there’s a suggestion that the derivation
from “wounds” should govern. The first
works better as an interjection, I think.
Unless you’re quoting someone with a
really forceful delivery, this is possibly the one excuse for using an
exclamation point in your writing.(not that “Zounds” in itself isn’t an
attention-getter, but why not go all the way?). I’m an advocate of
interjections (and parentheses) and dashes and semicolons and ellipses. Why
not? Some thoughts are just asides. Some call for a pause, but not a full stop;
ideas that might stand on their own can be closely linked -- and you might want
to show that. There are shades of meaning…
The blog is pretty much a conversation
with myself anyway, so I should be able to get away with pushing the grammatical
envelope a little. But along with the liberties, being my own audience dictates some
restrictions. Since I sometimes find the use of expletives jarring in other people’s
writings, I don't want to see them in my own, and you won't. If you read much online
commentary you probably know how bad it gets out there. "God's Wounds!" doesn’t come close.
