8. CRUZ-CREDO!

A “credo” is a credo, a belief, a creed. The Latin word for I believe, which became the name of the apostles prayer.

“Cruz” is a cross.

So the literal deal is “I believe in the cross”. The origin is very religious, but the nowadays use, not so much.

“Cruz-credo” is used to express shock, fear, repugnance, disgust, and it’s a very useful interjection for when you have the heebie-jeebies.

From the same meaning we have some of the greatest religion-related that have nothing to do with religion and, instead, express shock.

• Cruzes! = Crosses!

• Ave Maria! = Holy Mary!

• Vixe Maria! = Virgin Mary! (But it happened here the same thing as gosh instead of god, vixe instead of virgem – virgin) That created a whole new expression: Vixe! That has pretty much the same meaning of our well-known Eita!

• Arre égua! = Regionalized one that converted the Ave (Holy) in arre (?) and substituted Mary for égua (mare). I don’t know what happened here, but it’s the funniest interjection EVER! *There’s a version where Arre comes from the English word ahead, but what’s the fun in that?

• Valei-me (insert God, Jesus, Mary or any other saint to ask for protection)! = Help me! This one has a tad more of religiosity into it, but not enough to make only church people to use it. You know, desperate times ask for desperate measures.

Back to “Cruz-credo”, it’s usually accompanied by the sign of the cross gesture if you’re a believer, in a way of repelling the bad things away.

The kind of thing you use when you’re horrified with something, that moment when you get startled and your first instinct is “Jesus Christ!” That’s it!

Well, I hope there's nothing to “cruz-credo” about around this blog, I wish this experiment to be as smooth and funny to you as having ice cream.

Till tomorrow,

expressionada