Years ago I was putting a dish in the oven. The pan tilted. I tried to save it. And I ended up hitting my hand against the inside of the 450 degree oven. In that moment of shock and burning pain what came out of my mouth in front of all three of my children? “Booger.”
My kids still laugh about it. But under the circumstances, it could have been a whole lot worse.
Coming up with clean expletives can be a problem. Especially for people who write for kids. There are moments when the situation calls for strong language and anything less feels false. But I also don’t want to use profanity. So I’ve tried to come up with alternatives. Aly and her friends use Smurf in Life and Other Complications. But there’s backstory there. And it really doesn’t translate to anything else. So I’ve been searching. And today, I found my word.
My latest clean expletive is (drum roll) . . . 2020!
Try it out.
What the 2020?
Don’t pull that 2020 with me.
He totally 2020ed that.
I think it works. We’ll see if it ends up in a book in the future. But for now, I have my word and I like it.