i love the word dang. it's the best non-curse curse word substitute (for damn) of which im personally aware. we can go through the others: frick, frig, shiz, heck, etc. heck is okayish but the rest are dumpster substitutions for babies exclusively --  because only people barred from the good stuff would feel obliged to reach for these extremely lesser knockoffs. nobody is ever going to take down king fuck. nobody's ever TRYING to come for ass, and all of its versatility (dumbass, badass, smartass). and it's not even that damn is bad. damn has its own incredibly powerful energy, bringing a unique severity and dare i say solemnity to the table. but dang manages to create a space for itself that goes beyond mere substitution. dang conjures an entire mythos of cowboys and fathers hitting their thumbs with hammers while trying to nail together wooden planks. "dangit" manages to be more than an avoided "damnit," a mere damnit-lite. there's such a
  vast am
 ount of beauty in the word dang that i truly don't understand. how did it get like this, do you think, bill? why can't the other fake curses do this well in the vernacular?
you may not want to hear this, but i really don't like that one. it seems very implausible to me