I don’t know what it is, but I know it’s cold.

January 18, 2008 – 5:46 pm |

Here in Minnesota it is cold.  Every Minnesotan I encountered today agreed.  It’s cold.  Today is just one of those days you have to comment on the weather to every person you see.  One of those days when, according to the word on the street, it is colder than a bejesus.

Having heard the phrase a couple times today.  Man, it’s colder than a bejesus out there.  I got to wondering — What, actually, is a bejesus?

And, since I like nothing more on a cold day than a good research project (actually, I do find that cold weather seems to drive me, almost instinctively, to refined and processed carbohydrates, and I really can’t get enough warm sugary treats when the mercury drops below zero, a fact which, I think, supports my hypothesis that there is a scientific reason why women who live in warm climates can stay thinner, but I digress), I took off my mittens and fired up Google.

A Bejesus, according to the Online Slang Dictionary is “An expression of surprise or alarm.”

Well, um, yeah.  No offense to the writers of said Dictionary, but I knew that much.  What is a bejesus?

“Slang” says Answers.com “used as an intensive.”

Again, less than helpful.  I guess, what I am really looking for, dear Google, is the etymology of the word Bejesus - when did bejesus become an intensive and why?

Since Dr. Jacques Bailly is nowhere to be found I try Google again “etymology of bejesus.”

Merriam Webster is slightly more helpful, letting me know that it’s a noun and that it is an alteration of the phrase “By Jesus.”  And, depending whether I look at Merriam, or another source it appears we started using the term in the late 19th or early 20th century to say things like, “the bear scared the bejesus out of me.”

Even though I still don’t know what it is, I am willing to bet that if I came toe to toe with a Grizzly Bear, my by Jesus, and any other part of me that could, would depart the scene post haste.  But I still don’t know when we decided that a bejesus is very cold.

I am about to research it further when I stumbled on this, The Bejesus Quarterly, several webpages of proof that you can waste a lot of time on the internet, and perhaps evidence that there are people in the world who have more time on their hands than even me.  I give up.  My hands are too cold to type.

Tomorrow’s research project - determine what is, in fact, the coldest part of a witch’s anatomy.