Oh dear

Posted by R. Berg on June 13, 2009 at 16:10

In Reply to: Oh dear posted by Mark Smith on June 13, 2009 at 09:56:

: The origin of "Oh Dear". In Spanish, Joder means "f..k" in terms of intercourse, and also the notions of "f...ing with someone" and "screw something up" or constantly annoying someone. In Spain, the word is also used as an interjection, as in, ¡Joder! ("F..k!"). The word joder comes from the Latin futuere. I Can imagine English people in Spain, adopting "Joder", which is in common use and considered a soft expletive, and morphing it to "Oh Dear" What do you think?

I think that imagining how an exclamation might have originated is easy, but it hardly ever hits on the historically accurate explanation. Webster's Second Unabridged says, for this use of "dear," "Orig. apparently short for _dear Lord_."