Mild Epithets

I'm very careful about my cursing, and try not to do it very often. True, it happens on occasion, and I'll tell you that my favorite one starts with an F. It's just so satisfying. That "fffff" beginning, the hard "u" and then the explosive "ck." But anyhow...

I'm careful because A) Cursing is really not an attractive trait and B) I have little ears listening.

I learned this long ago, when my daughter was about 18 months. Despite my vigilance, suddenly I heard my daughter saying "Shit." How could this be? I soon realized that it was simply because she didn't enunciate as well as I did. I said "shoot" an awful lot, and she was just pronouncing those "oo"s as "i." At any rate, I thought that cursing was a particularly unattractive trait for an 18 month old, and set out to put a stop to it. I basically ignored it when she did it, and tried to remove "shoot" from my vocabulary. I tried to replace it with things that could not be misspoken in an unattractive manner. So I spent a lot of time saying things like "golly" or "leaping lizards" or "gadzooks" It took a while to find the things that suit me.

My daughter is now 4 1/2 years old. Today I heard her say "Holy Canolli!" My husband laughed heartily. I did, too.