Q When I was a kid way back when I had an uncle who’d say “land o’ Goshen!” I haven’t heard the expression since then. What’s the story behind it? – E.E., Wabash, Ind.
A: “Land o’ Goshen” is an old-fashioned expression that is rarely heard these days, although it has not dropped entirely out of use. We have found some evidence of its continuing occurrence (in one form or another) in recent years, as in this example from The Palm Beach Post of April 18, 2002:
“‘Oh my, yes,’ says Grace Snow, 91, an Indiana girl who’s keen for greens of all flavors. “Just boil them up with some salt back or ham hock, and Lands O’ Goshen – oooh, they’re good!”‘
It tends now to be used by writers to register a sort of exaggerated or facetious surprise, as in this January 2000 example from The Deseret News (Salt Lake City, Utah):
“Apples require federal good disclosures because, land o’ Goshen, apples have fiber.”
There isn’t really a “story” for the phrase – other than that it was a favorite usage of the cartoon character Loweezy, wife of Snuffy Smith, in the comic strip Barney Google. The strip was written by Billy DeBeck from 1919 until 1942, when his former assistant, Fred Lasswell, took it over (and continued it until his death in 2001).
The word “Goshen” is often viewed the same as “gosh,” that is, as a euphemism for “God.” Actually, though, “Goshen” is from the Hebrew “Goshen,” the name of the land allotted to the Israelites in Egypt, and is found in the Bible at Genesis, chapter 45, verse 11: “And thou shalt dwell in the land of Goshen … and there I will nourish thee.”
Interestingly, there are towns in many states across America named Goshen – named, presumably, after the Goshen of the Bible. As the name of a town, the word is pronounced GOH-shun, as is the Biblical word – in contrast to our “land o’ Goshen,” in which the word is often pronounced, as you probably know, with the “o” as in “gosh.”
This column was prepared by the editors of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition.
Readers may send questions to Merriam-Webster’s Wordwatch, P.O. Box 281, 47 Federal St., Springfield, Mass. 01102.
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