Great Scott

This article is about the exclamation. For other uses, see Great Scott (disambiguation).

Great Scott! is an interjection of surprise, amazement, or dismay. As a distinctive but inoffensive exclamation, popular in the second half of the 19th century and the early 20th century, and now considered dated. It presumably originates as a minced oath, but has also been associated with specific "Scotts", notably US general Winfield Scott and Scottish author Sir Walter Scott.

Origins

It is frequently assumed that Great Scott! is a minced oath of some sort, Scott replacing God. The 2010 edition of the Oxford Dictionary of English labels the expression as "dated" and simply identifies it as an "arbitrary euphemism for Great God!". Alternatively, it has been suggested that it may be a corruption of the German greeting Grüss Gott.

The earliest known record of the expression is found in The Eclectic Medical Journal, December 1856:

He tells you the aquatic, or cold blooded condition, is valuable as an antiphlogistic agent, and that it soothes and tranquilizes the lungs. ‘Great Scott!’ Mystery upon mystery, and marvel upon marvel!

Winfield Scott

John William De Forest, in Miss Ravenel's Conversion From Secession to Loyalty (1867) reports the exclamation as referring to Winfield Scott, general‑in‑chief of the U.S. Army from 1841 to 1861:

"I follow General Scott. No Virginian need be ashamed to follow old Fuss and Feathers. We used to swear by him in the army. Great Scott! the fellows said."

The general, known to his troops as Old Fuss and Feathers, weighed 300 pounds (21 stone or 136 kg) in his later years and was too fat to ride a horse. A May 1861 edition of the New York Times included the sentence:

These gathering hosts of loyal freemen, under the command of the great SCOTT.

The phrase also appears in 3 May 1864 diary entry by Private Robert Knox Sneden (later published as Eye of the Storm: a Civil War Odyssey):

‘Great Scott,’ who would have thought that this would be the destiny of the Union Volunteer in 1861–2 while marching down Broadway to the tune of ‘John Brown's Body’.

In the July 1871 issue of the The Galaxy, in the story "Overland", the expression is again used by author by J. W. DeForest:

"Great—Scott!" he gasped in his stupefaction, using the name of the then commander-in-chief for an oath, as officers sometimes did in those days.

Sir Walter Scott

While from the 1860s, the phrase seems to have been strongly associated with Winfield Scott in the United States, it has also been taken as referring to Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832) since at least the 1870s, and possibly earlier.

An early reference to Sir Walter Scott as the "great Scott" is found in a poem entitled "The Wars of Bathurst 1830" published in The Sydney Monitor on 27 October 1830 (i.e. still during Scott's lifetime); the pertinent line reading "Unlike great Scott, who fell at Waterloo", in reference to Scott's poorly-received The Field of Waterloo

An explicit connection of Sir Walter Scott's name with the by-then familiar exclamation is found in a poem published 15 August 1871, on the centenary anniversary of Scott's birth:

Whose wild free charms, he chanted forth Great Scott! ... When shall we see thy like again? Great Scott!

Mark Twain also uses the phrase to reference Sir Walter Scott and his writing. Twain's disdain for Scott is evident in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889), in which the main character repeatedly utters "great Scott" as an oath, and in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), where he names a sinking boat the Walter Scott.

Later usage

The phrase has the ring of being somewhat "dated", suggestive of the 19th century or generally an old-fashioned minced oath. 20th-century publications frequently use it to suggest such a context. e.g. the Rathbone–Bruce Sherlock Holmes films (said by Dr. Watson), Silver Age comics (especially Superman), Mr Wilson in the television series Dennis the Menace, the Rocky Horror Picture Show, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (end of chapter six), and the Back to the Future films (Dr. Emmett Brown). It was also said in A Christmas Story as Ralphie is in line to see Santa Claus, and in the episode "When The Rat's Away, The Mice Will Play" from Batman 1966, said by Adam West (Batman). Perry White Superman TV series used the phrase when he would get upset. Scrooge McDuck uses it in DuckTales Remastered. It is also used in "The Laughing Fish", an episode of Batman: The Animated Series, by a one-time character voiced by George Dzundza when The Joker enters his office. The Joker, voiced by Mark Hamill, quips, "Actually I'm Irish." Also, in Half-Life 2, Dr.Kleiner says it when he first sees Gordon Freeman in the game. In the episode Valentine's Day (The Office), Michael Scott uses the phrase "Great Scott!" at the end of his homemade "The Faces of Scranton" video. "Great Scott Film Industries" is the name of his imaginary film company, and the logo includes a lightening bolt and a headshot of Steve Martin and Robin Williams. It is said by Doc Spencer at the end of Danny the Champion of the World, by Aunt Sponge in James and the Giant Peach and by Miss Trunchbull in Matilda.