Great Scott

The 2010 edition of the Oxford Dictionary of English labels the expression as "dated" and simply identifies it as an "arbitrary euphemism for 'Great God!'".

Alternatively, it has been suggested that it may be a corruption of the South German and Austrian greeting Grüß Gott, although the meaning of the two expressions is totally different.

The main character in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889) repeatedly utters "great Scott" as an oath.

[4]The general, known to his troops as Old Fuss and Feathers, weighed 300 pounds (21 stone or 136 kg) in his later years and was too fat to ride a horse.

[5] A May 1861 edition of The New York Times included the sentence: These gathering hosts of loyal freemen, under the command of the great SCOTT.The phrase appears in a 3 May 1864 diary entry by Private Robert Knox Sneden (later published as Eye of the Storm: a Civil War Odyssey): "Great Scott," who would have thought that this would be the destiny of the Union Volunteer in 1861–2 while marching down Broadway to the tune of "John Brown's Body".