English usage and grammar

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A community to discuss and ask questions about English usage and grammar.

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Cambridge English Dictionary
Merriam-Webster Dictionary and Thesaurus
Gilman's Webster's Dictionary of English Usage. This is a great and witty reference about usage, its history, and its controveries

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When is "Jesus wept" used? (self.english)

submitted 6 months ago by molochthagod to c/[email protected]

13 comments fedilink hide all child comments

The first time I came across the usage of this phrase was in the movie Hellraiser, and I had no idea this was a common saying. Clearly though, there must be a double meaning there in the movie that I couldn't fully grasp without knowing the more colloquial meaning.

The description on Wikipedia is unfortunately not enough for me, I would like to see examples. And it's very hard to find those because Google gives me mostly links to religious websites.

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[–] Today 9 points 6 months ago

It's often used opposite many of these examples to make fun of someone overreacting to a perceived terrible event - things we would call 'first world problems.' Similar to when people rub fingers together as the world's smallest violin playing just for you. Whole foods was out of organic dog food and i had to drive 6 miles to the specialty dog food store. Their parking spaces are too small for my big ass vehicle, so i double parked and got a ticket. And Jesus wept.