text: From Random House Word of the Day\n\nJesse Krank wrote: \nAll right, the day has come when I found myself using a phrase I used to make fun of my mom for using: man alive. ("Woman dead" I would reply.) I have heard it used elsewhere but still have never discovered its origins. So, where, when and how did "man alive" originate? \nWell, in fact, someone called Frances M. Whitcher beat you to it: "'Woman alive,' says I, 'what be you dewin!'" (The Widow Bedett Papers, 1856 or 1846-51, depending on whether you believe the bibliography or the main entry in the 1944 A Dictionary of American English on Historical Principles from the University of Chicago Press.) \n\nI guessed, when I read your question, that man alive was contemporary with the emergence of land alive, sakes alive, law sakes alive, and simply alive as mild expletives in the early to mid-nineteenth century. Wrong! In its fuller form, any/all/each man alive, it's attested as far back as 1230. \n\nThere's a nice citation from 1858 in the Oxford English Dictionary that shows how the transition from emphatic phrase to expletive probably happened: "There is no assignable cause; man alive cannot tell a reason why." (This is attributed to one Gen. P. Thompson--but oddly enough, I can't find him or his abbreviated work, Audi. Alt. Part., listed in the bibliography. Not a good day for reliability from reference works!) \n\nThe first citation of the expletive use seems to be from J.B. Buckstone's Presumptive Evidence, either 1828 or 1829, again depending on which source you believe (are we detecting a pattern here?). I quite like the following one from Caroline M. Kirkland's 1839 A New Home--Who'll Follow?: "Man alive! What do you put yourself into such a plaguy passion for?" \n\nThe fact that Whitcher could say "woman alive" shows how productive alive can be when used in an emphatic way, especially in the expressions I noted above. Harriet Beecher Stowe uses it on its own in Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852): "Where alive is that gal?" My Montana-based grandparents always said "man a-livin'!" These days, none of these expressions is very frequent, with the exception of man alive, which feels a little old-fashioned, and deliberately euphemistic--in other words, Mom-ish. \n\nWendalyn \n\n\nFrom www.answerbag.com:\n\n1. "Man Alive!" as an expletive to express shock or amazement seems to have originated in the early 1800s, along with terms like "Land sakes!" These phrases and others were developed because Queen Victoria was notorious for her disapproval of cursing or taking God's name in vain. It became more proper to say "Man Alive!" than "Oh my God!"\n\n2. "Man alive" actually was a seaman's term. It was an exclamation used, for instance, when a crew came upon a shipwreck to signify that there was at least one survivor.