Tags
Aaron's rod, Chambers Slang Dictionary, comparative religion, Eve's curse, God for clods, Jonathon Green, zounds!
I noticed this while reading the Chambers Slang Dictionary (2008), by Jonathon “Mr Slang” Green. The slang phrase “God for clods” was allegedly used on U.S. campuses in the 1970s to describe “a course in basic comparative religion”.
Now that offers some groovy rebranding possibilities for RELS 101.
The Chambers Slang Dictionary provides more than a few entries with biblical allusions, most of them sharing a markedly Rabelaisian flavour. It all begins on the very first page, with “Aaron’s rod” (i.e. the penis, a term derived from Aaron’s blooming woody in Num 17.8) and extends through to the archaic “zounds!” (defined as “a euph. excl. lit. ‘God’s wounds'”).
One of the more visceral and memorable slang phrases containing a biblical allusion – of the ones I noticed in this engrossing dictionary – plays on the common and misogynist “menstrual interpretation” of Genesis 3:16, i.e. “the curse” of Eve. Here’s the delightful phrase:
“close as God’s curse to a whore’s arse [late 18C–early 19C] very close”
… yes, very close, indeed.
James Jacques Joseph Tissot - 'God's Curse'
The Dunedin School 