The interesting background to a word I use--but probably not enough.

Dagnabbit, true names and taboo deformations--linguistic journeys are some of mankind's most fascinating.

“Taboo deformation is one possible way for a word to change its meaning,” says Andrew Byrd, a professor of linguistics at the University of Kentucky who specializes in Indo-European languages. Basically, we are scared of the true names of certain beings or concepts, because to use them might mean we summon them, which we don’t want, or anger them, which we definitely don’t want, or simply make other humans mad at us, which is slightly less bad but still not ideal. The true name is powerful, and we normal humans can’t handle that power. So we avoid using the true name, but sometimes we still need to communicate with each other about those beings or concepts. That means we have to figure out a way to talk about something without using the actual word for it.

Very much related--and discussed in the article--is how Jews and Christians have roped off the true name of the Lord. Which should not be used--least of all in deeply cringe-y hymns.