Barry, I'd guess that "what the fudge" is a polite
expression of "what the fuck," and, just as "jeezum
crow" replaces "Jesus Christ," it allows for swearing
without actually doing so. (I grew up Catholic and my
young coreligonists and I used to argue about how
close you could get to swearing--and thus to
sinning--with such "polite" expressions.) My favorite
is "jeez Louise."
Candice
--- Barry Alpert <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Thanks Doug. A "treated text" in which my cropping
> is quite limited,
> considering I got the idea from Peter Riley's
> COMMENTARY ON OSPITA. Barry
>
> "Ospita is the word Hospital with the first and last
> letters removed. It’s
> also the third person singular of Italian ospitare:
> to house, shelter,
> entertain. It took a long time to find this word,
> wanting to capture the
> central derivation from hospes and avoid structures
> specific to person or
> institution."
>
> On Tue, 3 Apr 2007 09:27:56 -0600, Douglas Barbour
> <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> >Cropped, indeed, Barry, yet that final still sticks
> it. Beauty. Doug
>
>
> Kaspar, thanks for prompting me to search out the
> etymology of a slang
> expression I don't remember encountering in print,
> "what the
> fudge". "Fadge" goes back far enough so that it may
> not be an Americanism,
> even when uttered by "Captain Fudge". Barry
>
> On Tue, 3 Apr 2007 18:06:56 +0300, Kaspar Salonen
> wrote:
>
> imagistically & intellectually intriguing, in a
> 'what the fudge' sort of way
>
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