Ye Gods and Little Fishes!

In the 10 May 1902 issue of this journal, a correspondent identified as Q. R. B. posed a query that to this day remains unresolved. The questioner wished to know the origin of the then commonplace exclamation 'Ye Gods and little fishes!' which, despite its prevalence, had not found its way into the ordinary dictionaries of quotations. Here, Nace details the increasing interest on that exclamation. In 1900, the famed American fly-fisherman and fishing tackle inventor Dr. James A. Henshall employed the phrase as the title of a verse adventure book subtitled 'A Travesty on the Argonautic Expedition in Quest of the Golden Fleece.' The increasingly uncommon phrase--preserved today primarily through inquiries into its sources--has since entered into popular dictionaries of quotations, although the origins proposed in such bathroom compendia are characteristically, at times openly, speculative. In fact, the phrase has been cited at different times as being both uniquely British and quintessentially American.