Petes sake (english)

Im not sure if i have spelt this properly "PETES SAKE", what does it mean? and is it only used in parts of the UK or do other English speaking countries use it? many thanks. jj

It's certainly used in the United States, usually with "for" (and spelled with an apostrophe): For Pete's sake! I think it's a euphemism for "God's sake" or "Christ's sake" which some people would consider blasphemous.

There is also "for the love of Pete." Some sources suggest both are from St. Peter.

I've also heard "for the love of Mike."

It is also spoken in Australia; and i would think that zigzag's assumption would be correct.

I had to find out the correct way of writing this expression just a few days ago.

"for Pete’s sake"

Is what I came up with - capital P and apostrophe. I have no idea why some people write "Sake" with capital S.

Hopefully nobody is going to tell me that I was wrong...

It's used to show anger and/or frustration.

Imagine your boss asks you to work on Saturday. Next weekend you are asked again to work on Saturday. The following Friday you haven't been asked and believe that you will finally get a good rest this weekend. It's five o'clock and you are just walking out the door when your boss calls to you "Oh, by the way, could you work tomorrow?"

"Oh for Pete's sake!" you whisper under your breath.

cute scenario, count zero.

Office Space? I don't think many people would say "oh, for Petes sake". Sht or Fk would b more likely. followed by "Um, I didn't tell you before but my Dr says I have SARS -- actually I won't be in next week". I still would prefer to hear some one say "for Pete's sake" rather than "for F*k's sake. I think that it does refer back to St Peter. -- "Will you do this for Peter?"

For Bab's Sake!

A reference to St. Peter would to some extent defeat the purpose, that purpose being as zZigzZag said to avoid swearing oaths. Aside from the fact that no one has said anything like "By St. Peter!" in English since the Middle Ages.

(Don't tell me that bloody comes from "by Our Lady!" It doesn't.)

The OED gives the first citiation of for Pete's saek as 1924, but a poster to the American Dialect Society forum found

10 May 1915, EDWARDSVILLE INTELLIGENCER (Edwardsville, Illinois), pg.2, col. 5:
"For Pete's sake! Much of the back porch?" gasped Mr. Townsend.

10 October 1923, CHRONICLE-TELEGRAM (Elyria, Ohio), pg.3, col. 2:
"For Pete's sake," Dick growled, "don't begin any of that imitation trained nurse dope!"

The same poster said <blockquote>Quote
<hr> It's clearly related to "for the love of Mike" and "for the love of Pete," which we have from the 1890s. It's a euphemism for "Heaven" or "God," for heaven's sake.<hr></blockquote>Michael Quinon says that the St. Peter origin is folk etymology. <blockquote>Quote
<hr>In this case, we’re not totally without ideas. One clue is that another version of the exclamation is for the love of Pete, which seems to be slightly older (it’s recorded in print from 1918). In turn that reminds us of for the love of Mike, which is older still, from the 1880s. This last expression seems to have been a euphemistic cry to replace for the love of God, which is known from the early eighteenth century as an irritated exclamation. Another well-known exclamation, for pity’s sake, seems likely to have been an influence on the choice of Pete.
As a result, at some point around 1918, Pete joined Mike as the person to invoke when you were impatient, annoyed, frustrated or disappointed in someone or something, both men being stand-ins for the God that it would be blasphemous to mention.<hr></blockquote>Some sources trace love of Mike to "19th C. Irish" but I can't find many details. One source says <blockquote>Quote
<hr>British etymologist Adrian Room, in his 1999 revision of Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase & Fable, suggests that "the expression may have evolved among Irish Roman Catholics as a euphemism for 'For the love of Christ.'"<hr></blockquote>But it's a paid subscription to read the rest of the article. The author of the article refuted another supposed etymology <blockquote>Quote
<hr>The expression "for the love of Mike" is not Canadian and is probably 600 to 800 years old!

Believe me, it did NOT originate at Mike the Bookie's Newsstand in Edmonton. I don't believe the newsstand would have been operating 600 years ago. That would make Mike one hell of an old bookie. I mean, Jeepers Creepers, Shakespeare himself could have been into Mike for a couple of Gs.<hr></blockquote>

I find it hard to weigh the relative bogosity of the claim that "for the love of Mike" refers to some particular Edmonton bookmaker and the claim that it's over 600 years old. Both ideas seem quite unlikely (to put it politely) to me.

The suggestion of a link between Pete and "for pity's sake" is a good one. I wish I'd thought of that.

It is used in Australia but I cant tell you the spelling.

To say " for Christ's sake" was frowned upon a while back, so I think it's not unreasonable to think that "Pete" and "Mike" became euphisims for it. I believe the Irish said "For the love of Jaisus", which is a softer way of saying "for Christ's Sake". The Irish have a way of saying harsh things softly. Minds me of the American South. You can say "your Baby is really ugly, Bless his heart" and get away with it. Sometimes it's not the statement but how one says it. ---And it makes me shudder that 75% of people now say "for f**K's sake.

Why is "Jaysus" softer than "Christ"?

#14 -- It isn't. And you can't say "Your baby is really ugly, bless his heart" and get away with in the US South. (If by "get away with it" you mean something like "keep the good opinion of the person your talking to." If you mean "not get shot," then it depends.)

On second thought, it does seem to me that the Irish may reserve "for Christ's sake" or "for the love of Christ" for occasions requiring stronger oaths, and use "for the love of Jesus" a little more freely. Actual Irish please correct. There's no good reason for that that I can think of and I wouldn't use either one in the presence of a priest (whose good opinion I wanted to keep).

No second thoughts about the ugly baby, though.

Yes, jaysus is just how the English spell what they think of as the Irish pronunciation of Jesus. But no, "bloody" does not come from "by Our Lady." That's an old myth that never seems to die.

I am under 40- still quite a few years off, and use "bloody", and I've heard others my age and younger use it. It's kind of a substitute for what we would normally say though and mostly used in front of parents, grandparents etc as they won't be offended by it. Since I work with a lot of Americans I use "bloody" since it seems to amuse them.

Reading letters written years ago with old-fashioned slang is always interesting- I was reading letters written by my then-17-year-old grandfather to my grandmother which he wrote from a NZ navy ship in the Pacific near the end of the war. He used the words "gee" and "swell" all through the letters- seems so cute now, but was probably a cool way to speak/ write then.