"Origins of words" by Susie Dent, Countdown 18/09/17 (Great Scott, hold the fort)

I have two American sayings that arose during two different wars. And the first is Gerat Scott, something you're not really likely to hear these days. Very old-fashioned exclamation of surprise. It arose as a euphenism for "Great God", so that's not particularly surprising. But who was Scott? Well, the consensus is that it's a General Winfield Scott who was the leader of the US Army in the war against Mexico, so it was in about 1846. And he was known to be really fussy about how he liked his orders carried out and very, very adamant that everythinh should be carried out according to the letter of his law. And his officers, accordingly, gave him the nickname of Fuss and Feathers. It seemed like they were always trying to make up for not doing things in exactly the way that he wanted. And one unknown officer apparently coined the expression "what does The great Scott want now?" And over time, "great Scott" just singled out as an exclamation, a little bit like Gordon Bennet, which is another story altogether. And a secon phrase is "hold the fort", which actually goes back to the Civil War and the eve of the Battle of Alatoona, which was in Atlanta. In October 1864, a Confederate, called General Hood, wanted to destroy the army that was stationed in a fort. Now, this army was held by someone called General John Corse, and he was almost ready to surrender untill hw saw a message, signalled by flags, which was General Sherman, the leader of the massive Union Army. It said, "hold fast, we are coming". And Corse held, and Sherman's forces relieved the fort. But "hold the fort" then flew into public currency, if you like, and it's stayed there ever since.