Learn English – “For sake” – which variant is more common

expressionsidiomsphrases

There are a lot of variations of this phrase, most notably including

  • "for God's sake"
  • "for Heaven's sake"
  • "for Jesus sake"
  • "for Pete's sake"

Which of those are most commonly used in modern English? Is there any context in which one of them should be preferred? For example, I have never ever heard about "for Pete's sake" before reading "I, Robot" by Isaac Asimov, where this term is widely used.

Best Answer

In both the COCA (Corpus of Contemporary American English) and the BNC (British National Corpus), for God’s sake is by far the most frequent. It is followed in the COCA by for Christ’s sake and by for Heaven’s sake in the BNC, where for Christ’s sake ranks third. For Pete’s sake comes in at number four in both, and occurrences of for Jesus’s sake are negligible.

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