Bejesus

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Yeah, hey, how you doing?

This is Brian from Tennessee.

Welcome, Brian.

Where in Tennessee are you?

Church Hill.

Church Hill, where is that?

It’s a small little town in northeast Tennessee.

Northeast, okay, so in the mountains.

Yeah.

Oh, great.

Well, what would you like to talk with us about?

A couple years ago, we started a band,

And we called ourselves Smackin’ Bejeebus.

And Brian, what kind of band is this?

It was a kind of a blues, rock, country, just a little bit of anything.

I love that name, man.

I really do.

And what did you play?

I just sang.

Oh, you just sang.

Okay.

The word bejeebus kind of come up and everybody was like, what in the devil is that?

And growing up, I’m going to smack the bejeebus out of you or scare the bejeebus out of you,

Which is kind of a common thing around this area.

Mm—

Mm—

Mm—

Over the years, it’s kind of faded out, but people started asking me about it, and I thought, well, I’m going to look it up.

So I looked it up and did some research and found out a few things, and I just thought I’d call and see if you could confirm what I found out or lead me in another direction.

We can square this off for you and show you a little bit more about it.

It goes back to kind of a mild oath by Jesus.

So it’s a way of swearing.

But somewhere along the way, a kind of combined, contracted form of bejesus, often spelled B-E-J-E-S-U-S,

Came to be associated with arrogance or having a really high opinion of oneself.

So if you smack the bejesus out of somebody, because it’s Jesus as in Jesus Christ,

If you smack the bejesus out of somebody, you’re smacking the arrogance out of them.

You’re cutting them down to size and leveling them off a little bit and reducing the size of the big head.

Okay.

And that goes back well into the 1800s.

And some of the experts say that it has a strong connection to the Irish-American tradition,

Although I don’t know that that’s been firmly established.

Certainly, I’ve seen some historical fiction that uses it in the mouths of Irish-Americans

Or fresh off the boat Irish as well.

But I don’t know whether or not…

I think it needs more work to prove that connection.

In any case, a long history of being a mild oath, just a way of swearing without quite swearing.

Okay.

One other thing before we go I wanted to tell you, Brian, is bejesus often is just used as an emphasizeser.

We shot the bejesus out of those tin cans on the post, something like that.

So just a way to say more of the same or done to a high degree.

Our area in the Appalachians is where it seems to be contrary.

I was wondering if anybody else ever used it.

Oh, absolutely. Bejesus is used throughout North America.

It’s very common in the American South, but you will hear it plenty often throughout the country in all regions, all educational groups.

There’s a slight association with Irish Americans, but I think that hasn’t been fully proven.

Okay.

Brian, thank you for your call. I really appreciate it.

All right. Thank you all.

Take care.

All right. Bye-bye.

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Thank you.