I used an expression the other day while waiting in traffic behind a particularly annoying driver — the expression was “for crying out loud.” I use that expression on occasion and I’ve heard other people use it, so what the heck does it mean, and where did it come from? Some expressions make more sense to me than others and I can even imagine where they probably came from or how they originated.
I remember using “for crying out loud” fairly often when out kids were growing up — I’d often use it when they did things like draw on the wall with crayons or something like that.
But I got to thinking about that for crying out loud expression today and decided it made absolutely no sense to me. So I decided that today was as good a day as any to get to the bottom of this foolish expression.
So thanks to my extensive research skills, I have solved the mystery — well, kinda, anyway. It seems that the expression is one of a long list of sayings that originated in Christian culture — called “minced oaths.” These saying allow you to express your frustration without saying something sinful. So a minced oath is an oath in which the profane or offensive word is replaced with a euphemism in order to make the term suitable for all audiences. The inappropriate oath replaced by “crying out loud” is “for Christ’s sake.” How you get from from “Christ’s sake” to “for crying out loud,” I can’t figure out — but I’d guess it has something to do with a father upset with the endless crying of his baby.
Looking through a list of minced oaths was interesting and it was easy to get off track from my original task — for example, if you were a peasant back in the dark ages and someone stole your sandals, instead of yelling something like, “When I find you, I’m gonna stick those sandals up your…!” you’d say something like, “for Pete’s sake!” which shifts the attention to one of Jesus’ right hand men, St. Peter. You’d still be able to express your anger, but most people wouldn’t take offense. Even expressions like “Gee” are Christian based. The “G” sound represents the “G” sound in Jesus Christ….
For sake of completeness, I should mention that my extensive research uncovered another theory about the origin….. that the phrase for crying out loud originated in the United States in the 1920s, and the cartoonist Thomas Aloysius Dorian is credited with popularizing the idiom.
No matter the origin, for crying out loud is an expression of frustration, impatience, or exasperation.
So apparently it’s an acceptable phrase to use in our society.
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