Christ on a cross. . .
Why do some people say “Jesus H. Christ” or “Christ on a crutch”?
What is the “H” supposed to stand for, and why a crutch?I never understood why people say that.
“Crutch” might be a deliberate mispronunciation of “cross,” but I’m not really sure.
My theory regarding “Jesus H. Christ” is that in Catholic churches (and on other Catholic things) you’ll often see inscriptions like “JHC” or “JHS.” These stand for Jesus’ name (or in more recent times have been interpreted as a short form of “Jesus Hominum Salvator”, which is Latin for “Jesus Saviour of Mankind”), and are a transcription of the first three letters of his name in Greek (hence the variation between C and S). My guess is that some people, seeing that and not knowing what it meant, but knowing it referred to Jesus, interpreted it as his initials.