minced oaths 2: my garden seed
One thing I've only heard from old ladies (over 80) who grew up in the American South is: "Oh my garden seed." Of course, you would *never* say "Oh my G—". It would be blasphemy, taking the Lord's name in vain. However, in the American south, "Gahd" is the first syllable of "garden." So you get all the way through "oh my God-" and then add "-en seed" to rescue it. The thing is, if you're a Texan you say "gaRden," so the play on words is lost. It's "just an expression" — which of course nothing ever is. So it's not quite a frozen form (as in people saying "one fell swoop" without ever knowing what "fell" even means), so much as a transported form, whose shell survived transport but whose origin and significance didn't. Never seen it on social media. Just googled it, and got *one* result. It's just not documented but it *is* definitely a thing.
