Would you consider By Jove to be blasphemy?

[Dinopawus]

First world non-problem & I have no intention of doing anything about at all, apart from having a gentle chuckle.

DD has just announced that her English Teacher said today that she wants to reintroduce "By Jove" as an expression. I'm not offended by this, although I had always assumed it was blasphemous, so I'm mildly amused and have suggested that DD might want to pick her audience before embracing the phrase.

For additional context, her school is very strict re swearing and pupils who are caught usually get a short fixed term exclusion.

So wise Mumsnetters would you consider this to be Ok in a school that takes a hard line on swearing, and is it actually blasphemy as I thought?

Allah simply means god in Arabic, so that one is covered in ‘oh my god’. Incidentally, similar blasphemies are common in both Hindu and Muslim countries. It’s ‘ya rab’ or ‘yah allah’ in Arabic, and ‘baap re baap’ in Hindi.

I’m not sure where this idea that only the Christian god gets blasphemed comes from.

Why am I, in my mind, hearing all of these in Brian Blessed's booming voice?! Especially the 'man alive!' and 'by Thor's hammer'.

rainylake · Yesterday 23:04

It wouldn’t even be blasphemous to the Romans - they were fine with “by Jove” as an expression and didn’t consider it disrespectful to Jupiter.

You beat me to it. Mind you the Greeks and Romans were still wary of invoking deities, in case they summoned them, or accidentally got their attention.

Not many Romans would have invoked Dis, without guidance and an appropriate sacrifice, guided by a priest, or priestess at the temple.

I actually think the teacher is in to something here by using everyday phrases that don't offend others.

So replacing "OMG" with "By Jove" which doesn't offend anyone other than a few Roman deities.

Now if we could just replace "shut up" used in the context when receiving surprising or astonishing news. For example A: says "you'll never believe it but I got a £5k promotion at work today " B: "Shut up - you never".

No. Might wonder whether she was a young woman in the 1930s, though.

Duolingo DOES do Latin. I tried it for a week and then got bored. I'm doing quite well with Greek though (modern)!

sinnerboy
That's a worry, though. I mean, what if all this "By Jove"ing actually invokes a thunderous Olympian sex pest with incredible powers and seemingly no sense of personal responsibility? 🤔 You'd eyeing every bull you passed warily....

And swans...

Yes, Jupiter aka Zeus is not a god I’d want to encounter. Or any of that pantheon.

Yes, even if they like you, another one will be jealous and try to spoil your day with typhoons, hydras and the like.

I always thought the saying was By Joe he's got it not by Jove

Still, if Jove starts throwing thunderbolts about then those tin foil hats might come in useful after all ☺️

I am now desperate to introduce Bon Jovi into my curse words... "Bon Jovi, not another parking ticket!"