God whacked?

[Joe Pickett]

There is also a rock band--heavy metal I think--with the title "godsmack,"
so this may play a part in gobsmacked > godsmacked.
It could be that godsmack got its name from the word, not the other way
around.

Joe






Lynne Murphy <lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK>@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on 01/18/2001
10:21:16 AM

Please respond to American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>

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Subject:  Re: God whacked?


--On Thursday, January 18, 2001 9:43 am -0500 Jane P Parker
<jpparker at ISERV.NET> wrote:

> Has anyone heard the phrase "god whacked" before?  As in Madeline
> Albright was god whacked when she found out about her jewish reletives.
> I heard it used on the Todd Munt show npr by and editor for the
> atlantic.

Are you sure it wasn't 'gobsmacked'?  If not, I'd guess this is an American
reanalysis of 'gobsmacked'.  The only 'god whacked' things I can find on
the web are actually about God whacking somebody, or one in a sort of poem
that refers to 'your god-whacked beliefs', which I take again to be actual
reference to God.

"Gobsmacked", as I think has been discussed here before, is a British
expression meaning something like 'flattened by surprise'.  It's creeping
into American English more and more.

> I am not an academic person.  Is this group only for academic
> inquiries?  The faq  did not address this.

No, it's all kinds of people/inquiries.

Lynne


M Lynne Murphy
Lecturer in Linguistics
School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

phone +44-(0)1273-678844
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