"jeezum crow"

[Laurence Horn]

At 11:07 AM -0400 10/29/10, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>My only ex. of "Jeezum crow" comes from Stephen King's _It_, but GB turns up
>an apparently authentic English use from 1972.  (At least the book cited was
>actually published that year.)
>
>JL

There's also the alternate spelling "Jesum crow", complete with its
own urbandictionary entry and many hits.  UD agrees with DARE [!] on
the isogloss for the euphemism, whatever the spelling:

JEEZUM CROW:
a polite way to take the Lord's name in vein popular in rural Vermont

[Especially if you're one of those rural Vermont vampires?]

LH

>On Fri, Oct 29, 2010 at 10:53 AM, Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at stanford.edu> wrote:
>
>>  ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>  -----------------------
>>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>  Poster:       Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at STANFORD.EDU>
>>  Subject:      "jeezum crow"
>>
>>
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>  taboo-avoidance form for "jesus christ"; it appeared in a comment from a
>>  Facebook friend who grew up in Maine. googling pulls up Vermont and New
>>  Brunswick as well, and another Facebook friend added northern NY. DARE has
>>  it for Vermont and Northern NY, but it's clear that the distribution is
>>  wider, and almost surely takes in New Hampshire as well.
>>
>>  though apparently still geographically restricted. does anyone have reports
>>  of the form from speakers without a history in this region?  (the friend who
>>  first used it now lives in California, and before that in Boston, but she
>>  picked it up in her Maine childhood.)  Jon, do you have it in your files?
>>
>>  almost surely it was innovated by people in a very small group -- since
>>  it's fairly distant from the model -- and then spread, but this is the sort
>>  of history we'll probably never be able to unearth.
>>
>>  arnold
>>
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