Great Scott

Last updated

Back to the Future Day in 2015 celebrated by The White House. Back to the Future Day 2015 by The White House - Great Scott!.jpg
Back to the Future Day in 2015 celebrated by The White House.

"Great Scott!" is an interjection of surprise, amazement, or dismay. It is a distinctive but inoffensive exclamation, popular in the second half of the 19th century and the early 20th century, and now considered dated.

Contents

It originated as a minced oath, historically associated with two specific "Scotts": Scottish author Sir Walter Scott and, later, US general Winfield Scott.

It is a catchphrase of the fictional scientist Emmett "Doc" Brown from the Back to the Future franchise.

Origins

It is frequently assumed that Great Scott! is a minced oath of some sort, Scott replacing God . The 2010 edition of the Oxford Dictionary of English labels the expression as "dated" and simply identifies it as an "arbitrary euphemism for 'Great God!'".

Alternatively, it has been suggested that it may be a corruption of the South German and Austrian greeting Grüß Gott , although this seems to be rather about an "identification" of the two expressions in retrospect. [1] [ clarification needed ]

Sir Walter Scott

An early reference to Sir Walter Scott as the "great Scott" is found in the poem "The Wars of Bathurst 1830" published in The Sydney Monitor on 27 October 1830, still during Scott's lifetime; the pertinent line reading "Unlike great Scott, who fell at Waterloo", in reference to Scott's poorly-received The Field of Waterloo . [2]

An explicit connection of Sir Walter Scott's name with the then familiar exclamation is found in a poem published 15 August 1871, on the centenary anniversary of Scott's birth:

Whose wild free charms,
he chanted forth Great Scott!
When shall we see
thy like again? Great Scott! [3]

Mark Twain uses the phrase to reference Sir Walter Scott and his writing. Twain's disdain for Scott is evident in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889), in which the main character repeatedly utters "great Scott" as an oath, and in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), where he names a sinking boat the Walter Scott.

Winfield Scott

John William De Forest, in Miss Ravenel's Conversion from Secession to Loyalty (1867) reports the exclamation as referring to Winfield Scott, general‑in‑chief of the U.S. Army from 1841 to 1861:

I follow General Scott. No Virginian need be ashamed to follow old Fuss and Feathers. We used to swear by him in the army. Great Scott! the fellows said. [4]

The general, known to his troops as Old Fuss and Feathers, weighed 300 pounds (21 stone or 136 kg) in his later years and was too fat to ride a horse. [5] A May 1861 edition of The New York Times included the sentence:

These gathering hosts of loyal freemen, under the command of the great SCOTT.

The phrase appears in a 3 May 1864 diary entry by Private Robert Knox Sneden (later published as Eye of the Storm: a Civil War Odyssey):

"Great Scott," who would have thought that this would be the destiny of the Union Volunteer in 1861–2 while marching down Broadway to the tune of "John Brown's Body". [5]

In the July 1871 issue of The Galaxy , in the story "Overland", the expression is again used by author by J. W. DeForest:

"Great—Scott!" he gasped in his stupefaction, using the name of the then commander-in-chief for an oath, as officers sometimes did in those days. [6]

A large basalt rock collected by astronaut David Scott on the Apollo 15 mission to the moon in 1971 is informally known as Great Scott .

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Walter Scott</span> Scottish historian, novelist, poet, and playwright (1771–1832)

Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet, was a Scottish historian, novelist, poet, and playwright. Many of his works remain classics of European and Scottish literature, notably the novels Ivanhoe (1819), Rob Roy (1817), Waverley (1814), Old Mortality (1816), The Heart of Mid-Lothian (1818), and The Bride of Lammermoor (1819), along with the narrative poems Marmion (1808) and The Lady of the Lake (1810). He had a major impact on European and American literature.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Francis Pharcellus Church</span> American publisher and editor

Francis Pharcellus Church was an American publisher and editor. In 1897, Church wrote the editorial "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus". Produced in response to eight-year-old Virginia O'Hanlon's letter asking whether Santa Claus was real, the widely republished editorial has become one of the most famous ever written.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Winfield Scott</span> United States Army general (1786–1866)

Winfield Scott was an American military commander and political candidate. He served as Commanding General of the United States Army from 1841 to 1861, having taken part in the War of 1812, the Mexican–American War, the early stages of the American Civil War and conflicts with Native Americans earlier in his career. Scott was the Whig Party's presidential nominee in the 1852 election, but was defeated by Democrat Franklin Pierce. He was known as Old Fuss and Feathers for his insistence on proper military etiquette, as well as the Grand Old Man of the Army for his many years of service.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas Lawrence</span> English portrait painter (1769–1830)

Sir Thomas Lawrence was an English portrait painter and the fourth president of the Royal Academy. A child prodigy, he was born in Bristol and began drawing in Devizes, where his father was an innkeeper at the Bear Hotel in the Market Square. At age ten, having moved to Bath, he was supporting his family with his pastel portraits. At 18, he went to London and soon established his reputation as a portrait painter in oils, receiving his first royal commission, a portrait of Queen Charlotte, in 1790. He stayed at the top of his profession until his death, aged 60, in 1830.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Hope-Scott</span> British Catholic lawyer

James Robert Hope-Scott was a British barrister and Tractarian.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edward Middleton Barry</span> English architect

Edward Middleton Barry RA was an English architect of the 19th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Daniel Maclise</span> Irish history, literary and portrait painter, and illustrator

Daniel Maclise was an Irish history painter, literary and portrait painter, and illustrator, who worked for most of his life in London, England.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Anderson (Civil War)</span> American Civil War Union Army officer (1805–1871)

Robert Anderson was a United States Army officer during the American Civil War. He was the Union commander in the first battle of the American Civil War at Fort Sumter in April 1861 when the Confederates bombarded the fort and forced its surrender to start the war. Anderson was celebrated as a hero in the North and promoted to brigadier general and given command of Union forces in Kentucky. He was removed late in 1861 and reassigned to Rhode Island, before retiring from military service in 1863.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gideon Johnson Pillow</span> United States Army general

Gideon Johnson Pillow was an American lawyer, politician, speculator, slaveowner, United States Army major general of volunteers during the Mexican–American War and Confederate brigadier general in the American Civil War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James M. Mason</span> American politician

James Murray Mason was an American lawyer, politician, and Confederate statesman. He served as senator from Virginia, having previously represented Frederick County, Virginia, in the Virginia House of Delegates.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fourth Sea Lord</span>

The Fourth Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Supplies originally known as the Fourth Naval Lord was formerly one of the Naval Lords and members of the Board of Admiralty which controlled the Royal Navy of the United Kingdom the post is currently known as Chief of Materiel (Fleet). As of 2017, it is also known as Chief of Fleet Support, Chief of Materiel (Ships) then as of 2020, Director General Ships.

Military leadership in the American Civil War was vested in both the political and the military structures of the belligerent powers. The overall military leadership of the United States during the Civil War was ultimately vested in the President of the United States as constitutional commander-in-chief, and in the political heads of the military departments he appointed. Most of the major Union wartime commanders had, however, previous regular army experience. A smaller number of military leaders originated from the United States Volunteers. Some of them derived from nations other than the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alabama in the American Civil War</span> Involvement of the Confederate state of Alabama in the American Civil War

Alabama was central to the Civil War, with the secession convention at Montgomery, the birthplace of the Confederacy, inviting other slaveholding states to form a southern republic, during January–March 1861, and to develop new state constitutions. The 1861 Alabaman constitution granted citizenship to current U.S. residents, but prohibited import duties (tariffs) on foreign goods, limited a standing military, and as a final issue, opposed emancipation by any nation, but urged protection of African-American slaves with trials by jury, and reserved the power to regulate or prohibit the African slave trade. The secession convention invited all slaveholding states to secede, but only 7 Cotton States of the Lower South formed the Confederacy with Alabama, while the majority of slave states were in the Union. Congress had voted to protect the institution of slavery by passing the Corwin Amendment on March 4, 1861, but it was never ratified.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Benjamin Flanders</span> American politician

Benjamin Franklin Flanders was a teacher, politician and planter in New Orleans, Louisiana. In 1867, he was appointed by the military commander as the 21st Governor of Louisiana during Reconstruction, a position which he held for some six months. He was the second and, as of 2023, the last Republican mayor of New Orleans, Louisiana.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Southern Unionist</span> White Southerners opposed to secession and the American Civil War

In the United States, Southern Unionists were white Southerners living in the Confederate States of America opposed to secession. Many fought for the Union during the Civil War. These people are also referred to as Southern Loyalists, Union Loyalists, or Lincoln's Loyalists. Pro-Confederates in the South derided them as "Tories". During Reconstruction, these terms were replaced by "scalawag", which covered all Southern whites who supported the Republican Party.

The Battle of Cockle Creek, October 5, 1861, was a minor naval engagement off Chincoteague, Virginia early in the American Civil War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">New South Wales Mounted Police</span>

The New South Wales Mounted Police Unit is a mounted section of the New South Wales Police Force. Founded by Governor Sir Thomas Brisbane on 7 September 1825, the Mounted Police were recruited from the 3rd Regiment of Foot, stationed in NSW at the time, to protect travellers, suppress convict escapees and suppress Indigenous Australian resistance. The force remained the mounted division of the British Army in the colony of New South Wales until 1850, when it took on a more civilian role. The NSW Mounted Police Unit is the oldest continuous mounted group in the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cathedral of St Michael and St John</span> Church in New South Wales, Australia

Cathedral of St Michael and St John is a heritage-listed Roman Catholic cathedral at 107 William Street, Bathurst, Bathurst Region, New South Wales, Australia. It was designed by Charles Hansom and built from 1857 to 1861 by Edward Gell. It is also known as Cathedral of Saints Michael and John. The cathedral is the episcopal see of the Roman Catholic Bishop of Bathurst. The property is owned by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bathurst. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 5 June 2012.

References

  1. The suggestion dates to at least the 1950s. "Great Scott (Punch Alm. 1930, S. 43), in Bayern USA-seitig 1954 f. identifiziert mit Grüß Gott, ist literarisch selten." Wiener Beiträge zur englischen Philologie 64-65 (1956), p. 204.
  2. "The Wars of Bathurst 1830". The Sydney Monitor . National Library of Australia. 27 October 1830. p. 3 Edition: Afternoon. Retrieved 5 April 2014.
  3. ""Scott's Centenary", 15 August, 1871". The Sydney Morning Herald . National Library of Australia. 15 August 1871. p. 5. Retrieved 5 April 2014.
  4. Miss Ravenel's Conversion from Secession to Loyalty, New York: Harper & Brothers, 1867, p.40
  5. 1 2 "World Wide Words: Great Scott". World Wide Words. Michael Quinion. 21 December 2002. Retrieved 28 January 2009.
  6. The Galaxy, vol.12, July 1871, p.53