Our dishwasher can be reluctant to reset itself (we have to turn it off and wait several seconds) when it refused to start just now I complained “o for crying out loud!” which was unusually restrained of me

then it occurred to me that “for crying out loud” is the swear equivalent of saying “LOL”, ie describing your exclamation instead of just exclaiming the thing

except my grandparents would not have said LOL

there’s probably an erudite linguistic word to describe the act of describing the act instead of acting

something akin to 'onomatopoeic phrasing' perhaps?

Dunno? searchengineering suggests that isn’t quite the same thing is it like kids yelling “bang!” when pretending to shoot each other, or Ewan McGregor making lightsabre noises on set? like describing an act that you can’t do, instead of substituting for one you can

mmm, yeah, important distinction. At least you haven't been reduced to shouting 'oh very very rude word' yet

hah my mum sometimes does that 😆