“Speak of the Devil.”
Where do you think this phrase originated? I sat on it for a good thirty seconds, and the only explanation I have is that, one day, people were talking about the devil and he joined mid-conversation in the beastly flesh.
Typically, when I use the phrase “speak of the Devil,” I’m trying to convey my surprise at the coincidence of running into the person I was just talking about. I think most people use it the same way.
I can’t imagine the first use of this phrase being a silly coinky-dink moment though, like the way it’s used when you run into Tracy at the gym. Probably, it was screeched in sheer terror brief seconds before the devil apprehended some poor soul to tote off to hell.
Maybe it was Eve. Like when God was all, “Hey, you nomming on my apples?” and Adam expertly dodged the question by pelting Eve with his Granny Smith, and then Eve finally blamed the slippery serpent. If I had to guess, the situation shook down just like a Scooby-Doo villain-reveal.
Imagine: Eve is in the middle of throwing the serpent under the bus (throwing it under the chariot? trampling it under Biblical foot?) and the serpent flings itself out from under the arborvitae where it had been lying in wait. And in that instant the serpent evilly hisses, “and I would have corrupted the man too if it wasn’t for that rotten God fella snooping and nosing all over with his questions.” Then, taking notice of the serpent, the embodiment of her failure, the catalyst of her damnation, Eve yells, “F***! Speak of the devil! It’s he.” (Eve used the proper “he” in that sentence, as it is indeed the nominative case and the Biblical English had yet to be bastardized.)
This scene of the Bible was trimmed down for the sake of brevity, which is a shame because scholars believe 70-75% of the colloquialisms we use today were first used in Genesis and Exodus. Just to name a few:
“Skrrt!”—Moses, bellowed as he led the Israelites into the now-parted Red Sea
“See you when I see you.”—first uttered by the blind man to a friend, ironically, before Jesus slapped mud in his peepers giving him sight.
“It’s lit.”—Moses, Burning Bush
(You may have noticed that this is the second phrase attributed to Moses—they didn’t call him the King of Catch Phrase for nothing.)
“How’s it hanging?”—Roman soldiers, the crucifixion of Christ/discovery of Judas’ body
“Sweet Jesus”—apostles, whenever Jesus performed miracles
**Edit: after more research, I learned that the full phrase is “Speak of the devil, and he will appear.” We have records of it being used as early as the 16th century…so not biblical. Most of my earlier post is now useless as it was based on the presupposition that this phrase was one of the earliest phrases in humanity.
Changing gears for a second—wouldn’t this be a great way to keep Lucifer from his dirty work? Like Janet on The Good Place: if you say her name, she is summoned. So, if you’re constantly calling on the devil and he does materialize before you, you’ve now prevented him from executing his intended mischief. Seems like a solid way to make the world a better place. It’s also, in part, why I reference the devil so often in my writing. In this post alone, I’ve made dozens of references to the devil, effectively forcing him to stop what he’s doing and visit me to see what’s up. Think about how much time he’s now wasted by seeing what my train-riding bum is up to. This is time he’s lost, and one fewer orphanage he’ll be able to destroy via arson.
But you don’t see me receiving a Nobel Prize.
Nope.
I guess heroes are those humble folk among us who, like me, do the little that they can to stamp out darkness wherever it resides.
tl;dr Talk about the devil a whole bunch so he can’t do evil stuff.
Later,
Stephen G. Erickson, Co-Founder and Part-Time Intern
