Chrysti The Wordsmith: Heavens to Betsy - 1

Greetings word lovers and welcome to Christie the wordsmith. After decades of research etymologists have been forced to conclude that Betsy is a fugitive. She's left no linguistic DNA. Her trail has gone cold. There is no smoking gun. We're talking the Betsy in Heavens to Betsy that quaint old fashioned exclamation of surprise. Here's what we do know of Betsy. Fred Shapiro editor of The Yale Dictionary of Quotations has traced one of Betsy's earliest printed appearances to an eight hundred seventy eight issue of Harper's New Monthly Magazine where a character exclaims Heavens to Betsy with hyphens between the words. Betsey made her next appearance in an 1892 American short story collection where we're told that a character named Joe Zaya gasped Heavens to Betsy the name spelled b e t s e y. So here we have two 19th century quotations starring the fugitive Betsy. It's likely that this expression was in verbal circulation amongst American English speakers long before these citations but before we look into establishing the identity of

the woman behind the phrase let's survey an important feature of the expression Heavens to Betsy belongs to the family of exclamations that appeal to the eighth aerial regions and their resident deities. Good heavens heavens above God in heaven Heavenly days and Merciful heavens heavens to betsy has the same psychological impact but who is this Betsy Toona next time. To Christie the wordsmith Dave herbivores Christie the wordsmith is sponsored by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Zoot enterprises. A high tech firm in Bozeman Montana offering challenging careers and innovative solutions for the financial services industry sued web dotcom.