But frig is just a "cleaned up" way to say f---. If its used in a sentence, trying to convey a thought, it will be said as "well that friggin' thing..." which most men would call acceptable. MOST men will see that profanity does not HAVE to be used in conversation.
But when there is an outburst of frustration or exasperation, FRIG! doesn't cut it. You sound like a pansy.
Darn it or Dang it are more acceptable, as these are words that have been accepted over time.
But frig? Using frig sounds like Wally Cox or Woody Allen desperately trying to be viewed as cool or tough, but AFRAID of actually swearing.
Agreed. If you’re not going to say it, then don’t say something that says “you know what I really want to say at this point but I’m afraid to so I’ll say something that isn’t it but everyone will understand anyway.” If A=B, then any use of A in place of B means exactly the same thing as using B, complete with all the baggage B has.
Cussing may be low, but using a “clean substitute” which is unmistakably a veiled version of the same word is both low and cowardly.
On a tangent, a pet peeve is people being outraged about person X saying Y, yet they keep quoting Y over and over, blaming it on X, not realizing that by saying Y they’re, well, saying Y.
Not necessarily. Some etymologists suggest that it may have been derived during the Middle Ages (or earlier) from the word friction.
So there's the real possibility that it's a "genuine obscenity" -- as opposed to some kind of circumlocution.
(It would be out of keeping with this thread's high tone, however, to speculate about where the "friction" in question might have been occurring those hundreds of years ago, when the Angles, the Saxons and the Normans were developing our language's four-letter words.)
Orrr... somebody trying to cut back on his cussing by usign a substitute. I actually do that sometimes. F!!!!!