Oh, My Goodness!

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Susan from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Hi, Susan. Welcome.

Hi, Susan.

Hi, thanks.

What can we do for you today?

Well, I’m wondering about an expression that I use a lot, and that is, oh my goodness. I’m a very young 50-year-old, and I feel like, oh my goodness, is a phrase that expresses surprise or delight or even disbelief. And I also feel it may make me sound middle-aged. Not that that’s a bad thing, but I just wondered, what are younger people using to express delight or surprise now?

So you’d like to adopt a new phrase.

Yes.

Okay.

You mean surprise and delight in a way that we can actually say on public radio.

That’s right.

But, you know, OMG kind of works online. It doesn’t really work aloud, right? You can’t really say, I mean, people say it, but they say it in a winking, ironic way.

Yeah.

Some people say if they’re kind of surprised, they might go, yoikes, like Shaggy, but that’s a little played as well.

Yoikes.

Well, Susan, do you have any ideas that you’ve been trying out, test driving maybe?

Well, actually, no. I feel that, oh my goodness, is such a versatile phrase that I just have been realizing I can use it in many different ways. The only other thing I could think of was, in terms of texting, OMLG.

OMLG?

Yes. Have you heard that before?

What’s the L stand for?

It’s Oh My Lady Gaga.

Oh.

No, I know OMFG, which we can’t elaborate upon, but OMLG, I don’t know. And, of course, there’s the versatile dude, which basically has followed up the F-word’s footsteps and now can occupy just about every place in the English language. So if you’re really surprised, you’ll be like, dude!

But people like Susan and me, I mean, I can’t imagine us saying, dude.

Isn’t that the larger question, though? I mean, how are you going to sound if you’re trying to…

It really is the question. It’s a fine line, isn’t it?

There’s a story, a folk tale that’s been told a million times in real different ways about a fakir guru in India who is known for speaking every language in India. And he puts up gold and says, if you can figure out what my first language is, I will give you this gold. And he goes from village to village, and you have to pay him a small price in order to play his game. And people guess all the different languages of India, which there are hundreds. And ultimately he gets caught because when he’s sleeping, someone throws cold water on him and he leaps up and shouts basically the equivalent of mama or oh my goodness in the first language that he learned from his mother. And I think for you, it’s kind of the same story. You need to be natural and the first thing that comes out of your mouth, even if it’s my goodness, is what you should go with because it’s you. It’s part of you, it’s natural, it’s impulsive, it’s really what you are about.

Oh, okay.

That’s really good to hear. And out of all the choices that you have, my goodness is polite and safe and comprehensible and friendly, and I don’t think anybody’s going to be bothered by it.

Well, I guess that does express a lot of the things I am. I’m, you know, pretty genteel, so I guess it’s a good phrase after all.

Yeah.

There we go. Perfect. And since it expresses so many different things, it fits in a lot.

Yeah, it’s sort of the Swiss Army knife of exclamations. Maybe you could try gee willikers, though, just for once in a while.

Just on the weekend.

That would be great.

Well, thanks for setting that light on it.

Sure, thanks, Susan.

Our pleasure, Susan. Thank you for calling.

Bye-bye.

Goodbye.

877-929-9673 or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.