The greatest sin a child can commit: saying "Oh My God"

anybody else remember this one? As a 90's kid it seemed like the number 1 interpretation of "thou shalt not take the lord's name in vain" was that you couldn't say "oh my god" or "Jesus Christ."

Using god's name to trash gay people? that's fine.

to get people to vote how you want them to? Fair play.

to personally enrich yourself? a-ok!

but if you wanted to get grandma or mom mad this was the big one.

reflecting on this made me think of the way language was policed and how it acted as a shibboleth. anybody regularly dropping omg's was not to be taken seriously as a believer, because any True Christian would never say such a thing.

It's such a narrow interpretation, and probably an overly literal one at that.

anybody else experience this? Apart from not dropping 4 letter words and speaking christianese were there any linguistic signifiers that showed you were in or out of the group?

at my sbc middle school we had a crotchety older teacher, Mrs. Fletcher, who also policed "darn" and "dang" because she claimed anyone saying such things was swearing in their heart, which is, of course, just as bad.