Thanks for the explanations for the 'dang' word. Now I've been educated. I had a good idea what it meant, but was't entirely sure where it originated.

I have a little story to tell about cuss words. English is my first language but for a former boss it wasn't. He was a VP, and a very educated, respected and intelligent one at that. When he was angry he got into the habit of using 'pissed off' a lot, not realizing that it was rather vulgar. Who knows, he may well have heard me using it a few times, as admittedly, I do use some pretty nasty words when I'm angry. Not pleasant, but they do make me feel SO much better when I let it all out. It's these dang bad car drivers in Toronto that bring out the worst in me.

Anyway, getting back to my former boss, he used 'pissed off' once in a BIG meeting of all his staff. "When customer service begins to deteriorate, this really pisses me off, we need to change the way we view our customers.... or something along those lines.

I don't recall exactly the kind of response he got from this statement, but he sure got his point across.

We had developed a good rapport so I had a chat with him one day and suggested to him that perhaps he didn't quite know that this 'pissed off' expression is very vulgar, especially for someone in his position. I suggested he could use 'ticked me off,' but then this was only a couple notches down from 'pissed me off.' He was rather embarrassed and thanked me for bringing it to his attention. Often when I think of him, these are the first words that come to mind and I have a nice chuckle about our conversation.

Regards,

Eliz.