Many of you may already know the
10 commandments, right?, which are the group
of 10 laws that, according to the Bible, were supposely
written by God. And the second
commandment is: "don't take God's name in vain."
And because most Americans, and
British as well, are Christians,
many of them consider the expression
"Oh my God,"
blasphemous.
But this expression is very useful and very
used to express surprise in English,
so what did they do? They put
their creativity to work
and coined many different terms
to say "Oh my God," without saying the word "God."
And here are 5 of these terms
which, in my opinion, are the most used ones.
Well, the first term, and also the most used
one, is the expression:
"Oh my gosh!"
The word "gosh,"
as a noun, is
simply an euphemism for the the word "God."
But "gosh" is also used as
an interjection to express surprise
or to give emphasis to what you're
saying, in more or less the same sense as
our "nossa!" in Portuguese.
So, for instance, if someone scares you:
Gosh, you scared me!
Or if a friend tells you that
he won the lottery:
I won the lottery!
Gosh, you're so lucky!
The second term which is also
very used is:
"Oh my goodness!"
Just like "gosh," "goodness" is also an
euphemism for the word "God" and can also
be used an an interjection of
surprise, but don't forget that
originally, "goodness" is a noun and it
means the quality of being good or virtue.
I trust no one.
Just try to see the goodness in people.
For the third term,
which is the easiest of all,
you simply cut the word "God" from the
expression and simply say:
"Oh my!"
The fourth term,
which is way less used than the previous ones, is:
"Oh my word!"
And, yes, "word" means "palavra" in
Portuguese, but in this case, it's used
as an euphemism for "God."
But the word "word" has nothing to do
with "God," at least "gosh" and "goodness"
have something to do with it, right?,
they sound similar, but "word" has nothing to do with it.
Well, this expression comes from
the Gospel of John, chapter 1, verse 1,
which states:
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God," so that's why
they replace the word "God" for the
word "word."
So, God is word, word is God,
or something like that.
The fifth way to say "Oh my God," which is
actually more used in the written form
than the spoken one, and I'm sure
you've seen it many times on the Internet, is the acronym:
"OMG!"
So, if a friend of yours tells you that he
paid a lot of money for an object,
you can say the following:
I've paid 100 dollars for this pen.
OMG!
Well guys,
these are 5 of the most common ways
to say "Oh my God," without saying the word "God."
Other creative, but less used terms:
I hope you have enjoyed it and
learned something new.
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And now, it's time for you to join this conversation:
do you know other ways to
express surprise in English?
If you do, leave your comment below.
Thank you very much for watching this video
and I'll see you next week!
Kisses! :)