By Jingo

The expression "by Jingo" is apparently a minced oath that appeared rarely in print, but which may be traced as far back as to at least the 17th century in a transparent euphemism for "by Jesus". The OED attests the first appearance in 1694, in an English edition of the works of François Rabelais as a translation for the French par Dieu! ("by God!").

The full expression is "By the living Jingo", substituting for the phrase "By the living God" (referring to the Christian belief that Jesus Christ rose from the dead). "Living Jingo" refers to a legend attached to St. Gengulphus (Jingo for short) that after his martyrdom by being hacked to pieces, the pieces animated and hopped out to accuse his murderer. A version of the story appears in the Ingoldsby Legends.

The form "by Gingo!" is also recorded in the 18th century.

The expression "hey Jingo"/"hey Yingo" was also known in the vocabulary of illusionists and jugglers as a cue for magic appearance of objects (cf. "abracadabra"). Martim de Albuquerque in his 1881 "Notes and Queries" mentions a 1679 printed usage of the expression.

Origins have also been claimed for it in languages that would not have been very familiar in the British pub: in Basque, for example, Jinko is a form of the word for "God". A claim that the term referred to Empress Jingū has been entirely dismissed.

The chorus of an 1878 song by G. H. MacDermott (singer) and George William Hunt (songwriter) commonly sung in pubs and music halls of the Victorian era gave birth to the term "jingoism". The song was written in response to the surrender of Plevna to Russia during the Russo-Turkish War, by which the road to Constantinople was open. The previous year, Viscount Sherbrooke had applied the expression, then a popular schoolboy's oath, to the war excitement. The song's lyrics had the chorus:

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