Great thread. Glad to know that "Jesus H Christ" has been with us so long,gives me a remarkable feeling of continuity with the blasphemers of the past.I find many of the archaic slang terms interesting,especially those that twisted the pronunciations to avoid the act of utter blasphemy. "Gadzooks" is a great one...from "God's hooks", a reference to the nails of the cross."Odds bodkins" is another...a distortion of "God's bodkin",a reference that may have meant "God's little body",or may have been an even edgier allusion to the blade used to wound Christ.These ancient oaths, that only seem appropriate when mouthed by Jeeves the Butler in a Wodehouse novel,are remarkable because they employ the most dangerous kind of utterances imaginable,especially among the devout people of the medieval era from which they came; utterances that placed their very souls in jeopardy.

Jesus H Christ indeed.

LEJ