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On 5/24/2021 at 11:01 PM, Stonehugger said:

Maybe DV is a bit of a code; a special handshake; a shibboleth.

For some, maybe.  But others just hope to be asked what it means or why they are saying it.  It's all about conversations to evangelicals.

Maybe DV is a bit of a code; a special handshake; a shibboleth.

(This conversation is making me think of the "wee donkey" in Line of Duty.)

Edited May 24 by Stonehugger

Well, I suppose if you exclaim the name of someone else's deity, it is suitably meaningless and innocuous to the exclaimer.  Thinking about it, I occasionally use "Jesus wept" - old habit from way back, probably even my pre-Christian days, let alone pre-pagan.

Regarding "god willing", I know Christians who use that habitually, or even "DV", though it escapes me as to why strongly anti-catholic types would refer to Latin.  I do have an issue with it - for the evangelicals, it is part of their evangelising strategy to advertise their "faith" and "dependence on god".  At best (as they see it), it will give them the chance to start a "conversation" (thinly veiled personal preaching session), and at worst, it is a form of subliminal planting of a message.

And that issue is quite apart from the fact I've never seen an instance of god's will that is not, quite clearly, based on the desires of the individual human.

I didn’t have a problem with Insha’llah, whatever we were discussing would probably get done.

 What I didn’t want to hear was: IBM:-   Insha’llah, ‘Bukra,’ and ‘Ma’lesh,

It is said with very varying degrees of sincerity and means God willing, tomorrow, whatever (who cares?)

 Salt has been very precious so spilling it mattered and was obviously the devil’s fault.

 When I tried to explain de-icing roads in the uk the first thing I was asked was, “How do you get it back?”

 How many Pagans yell or mutter, “Good God” or “Christ!” Or even “bloody”?
 

On 5/20/2021 at 11:45 PM, hedgerose said:

the Beduin community, and wider Muslim community peppering their speech with God Willing

My daughter lives in Dubai and says that "inshallah" [God willing] means "I'll do it when/if I get round to it!"

Edited May 23 by Stonehugger

On 5/21/2021 at 9:38 AM, Veggie dancer said:

I tend to say it when I have said something else that I want to happen so that I don’t jinx it.

Me too. Exactly that.

On 5/20/2021 at 11:45 PM, hedgerose said:

My Gran would also throw a pinch of salt over her left shoulder to blind the devil if she spilt some

I still do that now. I remember relatives doing it when I was growing up.

 

On 5/20/2021 at 11:45 PM, hedgerose said:

We still use the word sinister without stopping to think of its origins. From Latin meaning from the left

For some reason, I sort-of equate sinister/left with going widdershins. When I was at school we read a story that freaked me out at the time in which something bad happened if anyone travelled widdershins around something. I don't recall any of the details, but it definitely scared me big-time.

From the Secret Garden (a surprisingly pagan old classic)

“Sometimes since I've been in the garden I've looked up through the trees at the sky and I have had a strange feeling of being happy as if something was pushing and drawing in my chest and making me breathe fast. Magic is always pushing and drawing and making things out of nothing. Everything is made out of magic, leaves and trees, flowers and birds, badgers and foxes and squirrels and people. So it must be all around us. In this garden - in all the places”