This question brings back memories!


I suspect that no one, even people on the far side of seventy,
actually says "Land sakes" any more, but it used to be a very mild
oath, usable by the most prim and proper types.  I associate it
myself with older, mostly rural women (but that may be because the
older women in my urban family were, shall we say, plain-spoken to a
fault).

It's probably an expurgated version of "For the Lord's sake," which
gets "cleaned up" so that  it no longer features the name of the
diety.

Kathleen Ward




>Hello everyone
>
>I do not know the meaning of "land sakes" in the following passage.
>
>Now I was standing in front of that window in my dining room, looking out.
>I wasn't looking at anything in particular, but you can see how things
>are.
>A body can't help but see things that go on in the solarium over in the
>Prescott
>house unless the shades are drawn. And Mrs. Prescott never draws the
>shades.
>Land sakes, the things I've seen -- Well, this young man was in there with
>Mrs. Prescott's sister. She was alone in that house with this long man.
>                                -----Erle Stanley Gardner, Lame Canary
>1937: 26
>
>"Drink!" she sniffed. "When he's sober he's all right, but when he's
>drunk he
>starts looking for trouble. He's always beating someone up or getting
>beat up.
>Land sakes, he came in while I was there telling about it. He was reeking
>of
>whiskey, staggering all over the place, and he'd been in an awful fight.
>Well,
>perhaps that'll be a lesson to him. He got the worst of this one."
>                                -----Erle Stanley Gardner, Lame Canary
>1937: 29
>
>Is it the same expression as "for God's sake"?
>If so, why "land"?