# Great Scott!
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-scott/472335
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [November 12, 2008, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-scott/472335 "2008-11-12T13:26:05Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)
#### Post date: [November 12, 2008, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-scott/472335/1 "2008-11-12T13:26:05Z")
Comic books are filled with exclamations like Perry Whites’ “Great Caesars Ghost!” and Wonder Womans’ “Great Hera!” I know that Great Caesars Ghost comes from Shakespeare and Great Hera is just something that fits with WW’s amazon theme. But often, folks will say, “Great Scott!” It’s so ubiquitous that I don’t think it is intended as part of a particular hero’s motif. Any idea of where we acquired “Great Scott?”
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### Author:  [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)
#### Post date: [November 12, 2008, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-scott/472335/2 "2008-11-12T14:10:51Z")
According to the [Take Our Word For It](http://www.takeourword.com/Issue087.html) site he was an American general.
> [@](#):
>
> At one time it was common to say great God but during the 19th century a prudishness fell upon the English-speaking world and people began to replace it with expressions like great sun, great Scott and great Caesar’s ghost. The Scott in question is not the author of “Rob Roy” but a popular U.S. general, Gen. Winfield Scott, a hero of the Mexican War.
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### Author:  [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)
#### Post date: [November 12, 2008, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-scott/472335/3 "2008-11-12T14:16:29Z")
By the way, the phrase ‘great Caesar’s ghost’ appears nowhere in Shakespeare, although Caesar’s ghost does of course pop up in the play Julius Caesar.
[Shakespeare Concordance](http://www.it.usyd.edu.au/~matty/Shakespeare/nsearch.cgi)
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### Author:  [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)
#### Post date: [November 12, 2008, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-scott/472335/4 "2008-11-12T14:41:05Z")
Next you’ll be telling me Caesar never said, “Pizza! Pizza!”
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### Author:  [@chowder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chowder)
#### Post date: [November 12, 2008, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-scott/472335/5 "2008-11-12T14:48:16Z")
Haven’t you seen _Back to the Future_ ?
Christopher Lloyd, the prof. invented the saying
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### Author:  [@Rocketeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rocketeer)
#### Post date: [November 12, 2008, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-scott/472335/6 "2008-11-12T14:53:23Z")
> [@Hypno-Toad](#):
>
> Next you’ll be telling me Caesar never said, “Pizza! Pizza!”
“Eat two, Brutus!”
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### Author:  [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)
#### Post date: [November 12, 2008, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-scott/472335/7 "2008-11-12T15:09:51Z")
Meredith Wilson used “Great Honk!” to great effect in “The Music Man.”