What's the origin of the exclamation "Judas priest!"? Was it devised
as a more acceptable form of "Jesus Christ!", as "shoot!" is to
"shit!"?

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Clarification of Question by nautico-ga on 02 Feb 2005 13:16 PST

Interesting, Pink, but now you have me salivating over the prospect of
Minced Oath Pie.

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Request for Question Clarification by pinkfreud-ga on 02 Feb 2005 13:17 PST

Dunno about the pie. I prefer oathmeal. :-D

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Clarification of Question by nautico-ga on 02 Feb 2005 13:25 PST

Pink, methinks you may have crossed some sort of acceptable pun threshold. :)

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Request for Question Clarification by justaskscott-ga on 02 Feb 2005 18:24 PST

Minced oathmeal?  Bleh.

Back to the original topic....

Will this suffice as an answer?

"Word Origins and Meanings Archive: JUDAS PRIEST" (29 Aug 2004)
Wordwizard
http://www.wordwizard.com/ch_forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=5371

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Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 02 Feb 2005 18:54 PST

I think justaskscott-ga wins the prize on this one (not the
over-the-top-pun prize...the other prize).

According the Oxford English Dictionary, the phrase does indeed hark
back to 1914, as listed in slang compendium of the time, and was used
by Sinclair Lewis in 1922:


1914 ?HIGH JINKS, JR.? Choice Slang 13 *Judas Priest, an exclamation of surprise. 

1922 S. LEWIS Babbitt ix. 126 Judas Priest, I could write poetry
myself if I had a whole year for it.

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Clarification of Question by nautico-ga on 02 Feb 2005 20:24 PST

Justaskscott: That's it. Make it an answer!

Hi nautico,

To make the answer official, here again is the link:

"Word Origins and Meanings Archive: JUDAS PRIEST" (29 Aug 2004)
Wordwizard
http://www.wordwizard.com/ch_forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=5371

Pafalafa has added excellent support for the answer by citing the
Oxford English Dictionary (from the entry "Judas").

Incidentally, here is the context for the 1922 quotation:

"Sinclair Lewis (1885?1951). Babbitt. 1922. Chapter IX" [about halfway
down the page]
Bartleby.com
http://bartleby.school.aol.com/162/9.html

- justaskscott


Search strategy:

After some trial and error, I searched on Google for noted slang/word
origin/quotation experts, including "Flexner," in conjunction with
"Judas Priest."

Thanks!

I doubt that you'll find an exact origin for this. 

Here's a list of similar "minced oaths":

http://www.innvista.com/culture/religion/deities/oaths.htm

I love that term "minced oaths." It sounds as if someone is running
swear words through a food processor.

This might be of interest to you:

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=355905

More mincing:

http://www.searchspaniel.com/index.php/Minced_oaths

http://www.customerservicecareers.com/wiki/e/Euphemism.asp

Not to mince words, I think justaskscott deserves the pie as his justdesserts.

Pink, I'm not a pedant (not that there's anything wrong with that!),
but "deserts" when used in "just deserts" is spelled with one "s,"
unless, of course, you intended the error to reflect my earlier
allusion to minced oath pie. See following (last graph under Dessert):

http://www.word-detective.com/072302.html#dessert

I feel better now.

Nautico,

I spelled desserts with the extra 's' in a last desperate attempt at a
play on words.

~The Pink Pundit

Pink, your desperation is duly noted and even more appreciated.