Do you remember how your grandparents used to swear?

My Grandmother used to say - H -E - Double Hockey Sticks. Cheers and happy weekend! 

My paternal grandparents were old country European immigrants.  I don't think I ever heard either of them curse.  My maternal parents were first generation but I don't recall either of them cursing in front of us either.

Unfortunately, I never knew them. I bet my grandfather had some great Yiddish cuss words.

My mothers parents were pure as the driven snow lighthearted Irish. Too simple to swear. My fathers side was cops and the guy swore..GD it! How can anyone stick their jelly knife in a jar of peanut butter back at the ranch where he live with someone else. He built birdhouses while my father built stained glass windows. My mothers side father was one of the very first motorcycle riders with no kneecap to prove it and also a huge creative crystal radio making fan if not the first. My uncle was a musician who wrote White Christmas and the thief Irving Berlin stole it and then he went insane to prove it. One day with my mother present, he suddenly shout,  I wrote White Christmas and eventually locking him up in insane asylum. Fact! He attacked my mother at the kitchen table he went so cranky for life about Irving. This post was edited by CosmicWunderkind at January 23, 2021 8:44 AM MST

Pretty mild ones. Damn, blast and bugger was about it - at least when we kids were present. Even blind drunk (Dad's father had PTSD from World War II), he was careful to watch his language around children.

 

  BACKGROUND
  I’ve only known my maternal grandparents; I do not know my biological father, so I have never even “had” that side of the family in my realm of consciousness. Additionally, my maternal grandparents broke up before my mother was ten years old. 
My grandmother lived in my birth city, unlike my grandfather, who always lived in different states my entire life. She had always been a presence in my life from my first memories all the way into my late teens. I remember visiting my grandfather various times and in various cities.

  HE
  My grandfather was a Baptist preacher, I never heard him curse, nor even utter a word in anger. He was extremely devout, extremely straight-laced, and extremely even-keeled. If he ever cursed at any time in his life, I am not aware of it. No one I’ve ever talked with who also knew him has ever given me any inkling that he ever cursed. He was over 80 years old when he passed away last decade.

  SHE
  I was about 26 years old when my grandmother passed away. The closest I ever heard my grandmother use her version of profanity was referring to someone as a “so-and-so”, and she once referred to dog feces as “dukey”.  For that latter one, my cousins, my siblings and I were between four and ten years old when we heard her say it, and we all fell out laughing. 

  UPDATE
  It’s a coincidence that you posted this question, because just last week, I was talking with my mother, and she shared some family stories with me that I’ve never known about before. One involved when my mother was about 9 years old and my grandmother fixed her hair before going to school one morning. My mother went to a neighbor lady’s house after school, where she would wait until my grandmother got home from work. That day, the neighbor lady went visiting down the block and took my mother with her. At the house they visited was a woman who was a professional hairdresser. That woman took one look at my mother’s hair and insisted that it wasn’t done right. She took it upon herself to do my mother’s hair, changing it completely from the way my grandmother had done it.

  When the neighbor lady dropped my mother off at home, my grandmother, horrified, immediately asked who had changed her hair. My mother, an innocent and excited 9-year-old, happily chattered away about the nice lady who “was a professional” and “really knew what she was doing”.  My grandmother hit the roof, but not in any way toward my mother. It wasn’t until church let out the next Sunday that the meltdown took place. My grandmother, with my mother in tow, was waiting outside of the church after services when the hairdresser emerged. My grandmother cursed the woman out in front of all those church folks, the gist being, “I don’t care WHO you are or who you THINK you are, don’t you EVER touch my daughter’s hair again!”  There were choice curse words interspersed in the tirade, but telling it more than sixty years after the fact, all my mother remembered was the shock and amazement at hearing her mother say the word “ass”. For me, hearing it for the first time, I could barely believe my grandmother was ever like that. Strong emotions bring things out in people, right?

~

If they got really upset they would invoke the name of Jeepers Cripe.  I think he was the son of Gosh.

I’m probably going to get darned to heck now.


This post was edited by Livvie at January 23, 2021 6:57 PM MST

Maternal grandparents didn't swear. My grandma could sigh like nobody's business, though. You could almost feel it. Hehe. 

Paternal grandfather mostly avoided it around the grandchildren (mostly avoided the female grandchildren in general for the most part, haha), but I heard enough to know where my dad got his first lessons. Paternal grandmother would exclaim "Rats!" and that sort of thing. 

My grandmother (on my mum's side) used to say "oh, stez!" which I believe was an East Yorkshire swear word.