Is "By Jove" a minced oath?

[Miss Marple]

"A-Ha was the name of a 1980s one hit band that tried to replicate ABBA. And bother appears to be used in its usual sense. So I don't see any problem with either of those. "

I appreciate that you see nothing wrong with them; but some brethren do. Therein lies my point.

 

[py3ak]

I appreciate that you see nothing wrong with them; but some brethren do. Therein lies my point.

That's why you ask for the reasoning. I had a lady tell me once that she wouldn't listen to opera because, not understanding French or Italian or German, how could she know but that someone who did understand those things might come into her house at the precise moment that something with an offensive meaning was being sung? That concern certainly shows a commendable heart to "give none offense" -- but it isn't a terribly strong argument for not listening to opera. Should I take that, then, and conclude that no one has any better reasons for recommending against certain pieces or genres of music?

There are bad arguments for things we acknowledge to be true and good, like predestination, and presbyterianism, and propriety. The existence of bad arguments, and bad arguers, doesn't mean that is all there is. I regret that you felt condemned or snubbed; but if we start abandoning positions because someone once held them censoriously, we will wind up abandoning everything, including an opposition to censoriousness.

 

[Edward]

but some brethren do.

While we shouldn't go out of our way to give offense, sometimes it really isn't worth the effort to pander to the hypersensitive. And sometimes we can earn the respect of someone trying to be manipulative.

But that is why I look first to Scripture and the Standards.

 

[Miss Marple]

It is true Ruben, I could ask for the reasoning.

When I have, I get a wide variety of response. There is no consistency. I spent quite some time looking into it and considering the various arguments.

In order to avoid offending all, I'd basically have to just drop all interjections.

I am not willing to do that, because I think it is excessive, also, I am tender about joining in on what I consider to be a pharisaical trend. By pharisaical, I mean, declaring as sin what God has not called sin; and enforcing it upon others. While I believe that my husband can forbid terms for our family, for instance, in our home we are not allowed to say "shut up," I would not enforce that upon the rest of the church.

I also think parents can forbid terms they find offensive to their children, but, I'd hope the children are instructed not to judge other children/families by the same standard. Finally, obviously, people can for whatever personal reasons forbid certain terms to themselves. This is all within Christian liberty.

What I do object to is an extra-Biblical standard being set for all in the church.

On a previous thread, I asked if anyone could provide a list of approved interjections. No one offered one, but it is my guess that if someone does, others will have various objections.

 

[Peairtach]

and so use them perfectly sinlessly.

I'm not sure that I can go with that.

Well genuine ignorance about certain facts does make a difference as to whether or not the subject is sinning.

E.g. if I give you a drink from a bottle marked lemonade which contains poison and you die, I haven't committed murder. But if I knew there was poison in it, I have sinned and committed murder.

In the case of these expressions, once it has been pointed out to the individual what they mean, then they sin when they use them.

Unless you are saying it is a sin not to check out the meaning of all expressions before you use them?

It's certainly not reasonable to say that it is sinful not to test all bottles of lemonade for poison before you use them.

Sorry for havering!

 

[Elizabeth]

As an aside, we were visiting an IFB church for a time this past year on Sunday evenings(now we visit with an LCMS congregation). The Pastor was just a terrific fellow, expounding on grace almost every week. Mentioning that Spurgeon was a Calvinist, quoting Ryle and Keller, etc. Really, just an intelligent, wonderful fellow, not at all what one would expect to find in a little Midwestern IFB church.

Well, some of the folks in that church were very strongly opposed to any sort of 'possible' minced oath. They debated the matter in the local paper, even. Frankly, I winced at some of their legalisms, esp toward to non-Christian community at large. At any rate, it wasn't long after that the pastor used 'oh my goodness' FROM THE PULPIT! I could see a literal physical reaction in a few of the members.

Maybe it was a sin for him to use 'oh my goodness', I will leave that to smarter folks than myself.

I have to say, it didn't trouble me, but maybe it should have. I'll have to give that some thought. I suppose being married to a fellow who uses such phrases on occasion, maybe my heart is hardened to it, when it should not be.

 

[Alan D. Strange]

I think that Ruben is spot-on with his (somewhat lengthy) analysis.

Characters in Wodehouse clearly mean, when they say "By Jove," to express strong emotion with a euphemism. They are in no sense mocking a pagan god; they are substituting the name of a pagan god for the Christian God because it was societally unacceptable at the time to invoke the Christian God in such a careless fashion. It is thought to be better to invoke a non-existent god as a milder form of invoking the real one. It is a minced oath. There are, as has been noted herein, many of them. It does not seem to me that determining whether something is a "minced oath" is all that dark and difficult. It's been accurately done here on the PB, I believe.

But let's step back in our consideration of inappropriate use of oaths, minced oaths, and other things, like name-calling, and think about the whole use of them. Let's think of where this occurs when driving--A nearby driver may do something that I regard as inappropriate: I can use the Lord's name, I can use a code word for the Lord's name (minced oath), I can utter a general vulgarity, and/or I may call that driver any number of things, from the most vulgar to something not regarded as such ("knucklehead!").

Have I done any of those? Yes, to my shame. Are any of those justified? No. Why are they not justified; What does it reflect when I do any those? They are not justified because in all cases they reflect a lack of love to God and my fellow man. The use of such evince a lack of calm in my spirit, a failure to trust the Lord who orders all my life and intends in all things, including all the suffering that He sends my way, for me to respond with submission, equanimity, trust in Him, not fretting, not murmuring and complaining.

When someone does something I don't like on the road and I cry out "Jerk!" (about the other driver), my spirit is not where it ought to be with regards to God and my fellow man. When I am consciously resting and trusting in Christ, I don't feel that need to thus cry out. When I do--whatever it is I might say ("Yikes! Watch it, stupid! ****")--it does not reflect the fruit of the Spirit but the works of the flesh.

Wrongful oaths and minced oaths rightly each receive their own proper consideration. But they, together with name calling and inappropriate, rude commands ("Shut up!") all reveal hearts not resting and trusting in the Lord as they should be.

Peace,
Alan

 

[py3ak]

It is true Ruben, I could ask for the reasoning.

When I have, I get a wide variety of response. There is no consistency. I spent quite some time looking into it and considering the various arguments.

In order to avoid offending all, I'd basically have to just drop all interjections.

I am not willing to do that, because I think it is excessive, also, I am tender about joining in on what I consider to be a pharisaical trend. By pharisaical, I mean, declaring as sin what God has not called sin; and enforcing it upon others. While I believe that my husband can forbid terms for our family, for instance, in our home we are not allowed to say "shut up," I would not enforce that upon the rest of the church.

I also think parents can forbid terms they find offensive to their children, but, I'd hope the children are instructed not to judge other children/families by the same standard. Finally, obviously, people can for whatever personal reasons forbid certain terms to themselves. This is all within Christian liberty.

What I do object to is an extra-Biblical standard being set for all in the church.

On a previous thread, I asked if anyone could provide a list of approved interjections. No one offered one, but it is my guess that if someone does, others will have various objections.

Mrs. Rothenbuhler, thank you for the reply. What you say about diversity of reasons could apply to a broad range of topics. Over the years, many arguments have been offered for paedobaptism: some of them good, some of them horrible, and some of them inconsistent with one another. Is that a reason to reject paedobaptism? On a recent thread about the relationship between foreknowledge and predestination several positions were put forward, all in favor of predestination, but taking different approaches (including a Biblical argument that "foreknowledge" means more than prescience, a theological argument from the nature of God's knowledge, and an argument that predestination is derived directly from other Biblical texts, not deduced from foreknowledge: all are somewhat correct, and all agreed that predestination is real and absolute; but the arguments deployed were diverse). I could wish that everyone who held to a correct position would be able to defend it clearly and winsomely, in a way that manifested unanimity not simply on the position itself but on the theology of the position; but I doubt that such a degree of understanding and unity will come about in my lifetime. Strictly speaking, that is irrelevant to the accuracy of a position. Baptismal regeneration and presumptive regeneration are bad reasons to baptize babies; it doesn't mean there are no good reasons to do so.

I don't believe that the question of minced oaths and interjections has primary reference to not offending others. Obviously in our society many are not offended by blasphemies too horrible to be identified in any kind of precise way on this board. Certainly part of our concern in our speech is not to give offense, and so just as you would say "trousers" instead of "pants" in the UK, you can refrain from terms and expressions you know to be offensive in other settings. But that is not the basis on which minced oaths are objected to. As I stated before, an invocation of God euphemistically is still an invocation of God. If it is right and appropriate to invoke God, to what end is this done euphemistically? If it is not right or appropriate to invoke God, what does the euphemism accomplish? Things are not as subjective as your approach would indicate: what is and isn't an euphemism is defined by public acceptation, not by personal feeling or intention.

I can certainly understand not wishing to take the conscience of another as the standard for the church at large. I'm not going to take your conscience as my standard, and it would make me a little unhappy to think that you were taking my conscience as your standard. But not everything is a matter of individual conscience: even if my conscience doesn't bother me for it, it's still wrong to take up the Lord's name in vain. Minced oaths are not about what we feel, and they are not about refraining from offending others; they are about maintaining reverence to God in our speech.

Making an "approved list" of interjections would be pharisaical, so I'm not surprised that didn't happen. There is a resource to tell you whether a word is euphemistic or not, however: the dictionary. It's not infallible, but it's where we generally turn when we want to know where a word comes from and how it is used. Of course people will object. But people object to everything. It doesn't matter, because truth isn't democratic.

Thank you, Alan - I am glad you were able to broaden the discussion. I wasn't sure how to include all that in an analysis that is publicly recognized as lengthy!

 

[Alan D. Strange]

Thanks again, Ruben. I think that your contributions to this conversation have been quite valuable and are a real ministry to everyone on the PB.

BTW, the "somewhat lenghty" comment was meant to be, just so everyone is clear, a bit of good-natured ribbing of a man for whom I have great respect.

Peace,
Alan

 

[Edward]

I would like to thank Professor Strange and Mr. py3ak for their articulate and well reasoned response(s) and would commend them to those who are unsure on these issues. While I consider vulgarities 'less bad' than profanity, as Professor Strange has noted, they are not good, and they do reflect weaknesses in those (like me) who resort to them in moments of anger or frustration.

 

[py3ak]

Thanks for the encouragement, Alan - the ribbing made me giggle.

 

[Elizabeth]

These are very helpful posts, in thinking through this issue. Really, as I've thought about it this morning, there are a few minced oaths I use pretty often. They may not be as obvious as some, but the vehemence behind them is the same: oh dear, oh brother, shoot, bother and the like. I will be more careful, for certain. And reading Wodehouse(free kindle book I've been reading this week with 'by jove' in it) I will have to reconsider, as well.

One question I had: the ladies(IFB) I mentioned who fought this battle in the local newspaper felt that anyone(believer or no) using a minced oath(like golly or gee) was actually diminishing God's glory. I couldn't quite see how that could be possible?

 

[Alan D. Strange]

I would like to thank Professor Strange and Mr. py3ak for their articulate and well reasoned response(s) and would commend them to those who are unsure on these issues. While I consider vulgarities 'less bad' than profanity, as Professor Strange has noted, they are not good, and they do reflect weaknesses in those (like me) who resort to them in moments of anger or frustration.

Thanks, Edward. I'll have to ask you to move over quite a bit to make room for me in your comment about "weaknesses." I've never met anyone who struck me as more sinful in this than I am: I am, natively, in my sinful self, full of complaints, murmurings, self-importance, self-pity and all that loathsome self-centeredness that is part and parcel of my old man. It manifests itself in so many ways and is something that I am ever challenged to put to death. In our family devotional last night (we are in Romans just now), our reading was Romans 7. I can so identify with that and Paul's cri de couer, "O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?"

Peace,
Alan

 

[Alan D. Strange]

And reading Wodehouse(free kindle book I've been reading this week with 'by jove' in it) I will have to reconsider, as well.

With respect to this point, you'll need to act as you understand that the Lord would have you to act. If reading someone saying "By Jove" in some way tempts you to do the same, then by all means forbear.

If the question is, more narrowly, may one read (or watch, listen to on audio book, etc.) something in which some sort of inappropriate language is used (whether a clear violation of the Third Commandment or any of the lesser things that we've discussed in this thread), I think that's a different matter. For me it depends on the degree, frequency, purpose. If I were reading an account of actual conversation (say Nixon with his aides in the Oval Office), I would have no sense of transgressing if I read through it to see what they were maintaining (this is obviously true as a historian). I have read things with strong language that were true or true to life, making a larger point. I do not necessarily stop reading something because I come accross the Lord's name used in vain or strong vulgaraties. Again, it depends on degree and frequency. I have both stopped reading and watching things for that reason when I thought that the usage was unwarranted or could not be in any way justified.

Wodehouse is a delight. His characters have many flaws, and this would be one of them. Why do you read Wodehouse? How do you benefit from it? I personally would not forbear reading it on these grounds. The question you seem to be asking is, more broadly, does the depicition of characters sinning involve me in sin? The answer, I think, is "not necessarily." It may well and, in some things, clearly would (p0rnography, for example). Is Bertie Wooster, or even Jeeves, without sin? No, we could identify a number of sins: the use of minced oaths is one among many, and, arguably, not the worst thing(s) that they do wrong. I could say more but that may be enough.

Peace,
Alan