Torkeys!
There are expressions we all use on a fairly regular basis that we never intended to allow to creep into our everyday speech. Too late now, though, ‘cause there they are. I stand firm in this: Trying to have an expletive or a manner of speech you use only occasionally is, you know, like dabbling in crack-cocaine. Or decoupage.
Okay, so maybe that last one’s just my own compulsion.

But anyway, a quick example: I have a colleague who says, as an expression of surprise, not
“Dude!” but rather the more drawn-out hang-tenny sorta
“Duuuuude!”
All the time. And he doesn’t even want to! No, he originally began saying it to make fun of this other guy he knew who said it all the time. But then it was there, lodged in the circuits of his brain – and, sooner or later, the Ironic has a funny way of becoming the Un-ironic and there you go. He’s a Minnesotan who talks like a damn surfer, now.

That’s how language travels. Like a virus.

And then there’s mine. Or the one I realized I’d picked up and now say, no, not occasionally, but rather: All the time.
The word I’m thinking of? Is “Oy.”
I realized this tonight. I realized that I’ve actually been saying “Oy!” for a long time, without giving it a second thought. I’m not Jewish. I have no relatives who use this term. In fact I have known only one person, a coworker whom I didn’t even see every single day at Small Publication, who ever said freaking, “Oy!” She was Jewish. And she usually said it with some variant of a knowing wink. Not that she had to, but she did.

But me? No. In moments of unthinking, automatic reaction, when others might fall into an, “Oh, my God,” or a “Yes. That is a dizzying amount and variety of drugs you have done in the past 72 hours,” or a “Jesus, these grocery bags are heavy!” there it is, my small, but audible,
“Oy!”

Tonight I wracked my brain to figure out where and when this started. And I did: In my case, it’s wasn’t a friend or anyone I actually even ever knew whom I’m aping.

It’s a cartoon character.
It’s the TURKEY VENDOR in the obscure little Christmas special, Ziggy’s Gift. Now, for the record, it is Simple Fact in my book that Ziggy’s Gift is the best never-seen Christmas special, ever. (According to this website, it won an Emmy, but internet/schminternet; who knows.) Whether it’s good or not though, it’s a strange place for a person to be nabbing her Expletives for Daily Use.

To figure this out, I sat and tried to recall the original context in which I thought of the expression. What I heard was a brawny male voice saying, “Oy!! Torkeys! Oy!” and remembered: Yes, okay, Turkey Vender guy. Then I realized that sometimes I say NOT just “Oy,” when I’ve slammed the tail of my coat into the car door, but instead, The Whole Thing. “Oy!” I’ll mutter. “Torkeys.”
Without even thinking about it.

And the weirdest part? The first time I saw Z.G. and the period of time when I was really, well, “into” it, as I guess you’d say, was when I was a teenager. I haven’t seen it in a number of years. Which means that I’ve likely been saying “Oy!” and its close relative, “Oy! Torkeys!” for at least ten years without even realizing it.