So, I've been trying to google this, but all I get are biblical names and stuff you would call a metal band. I'm more interested in what regular folk would call the devil, but for the life of me, I can't think of the proper search term to get google to understand what I'm looking for. You know, how Santa Claus is familiarly known as St. Nick. I'm looking for names like "ol' crooked foot" or "horny Bob", but stuff I didn't make up. Something you'd read that makes you go, "Oh, they mean the devil." Oh! I'm gonna see what results I get from "colloquial", but I'll leave the question here as well. Edit: Yeah, "colloquial" was the term I needed. I'm still interested in your suggestions, though. If you've got time to kill or something.
It's too bad. I know exactly what book you need, and it used to be online and searchable as a website, but they got rid of that because of $ reasons. Now you have to pay for a year access. I know there are phraselists online and someone's about to post one, but that dictionary resource had everything. This all reminds me that I need to buy another two volumes of it. I was collecting the older volumes (there are 4). I think you can buy them new for an ungodly price, but that's just not going to happen unless you're an etymologist or something. Oh, it's the Dictionary of American Regional English. You think you know all the possible phrases until you look in there and there are 10 times what you could have imagined. Here's sort of a list. There are some good ones in there. I'm kind of wondering if that's not an actual excerpt . . . ? It seems similar but not as complete. I don't know. edit: Jimmy Square Foot! That's a great one. I've never heard that before. Anyway, it's a good list.
Mister Scratch is one. Beelzebub is another, if these are the kind of names you're looking for. Beelzebub is an interesting one. Formerly a god in some minor religion in Christianity's path, so it got 'incorporated'. Many minor gods of minor religions got the same treatment, and became Christian demons. Beelzebub is also known as Ba'al (not sure exactly where the apostrophe goes), and the Lord of the Flies, which meant fliers or winged ones. Not insects really, just beings with wings. But apparently it came to mean the god of insects. This gave rise to the idea that the devil can appear in the form of an insect or a swarm of them. And of course that accurately gets across the idea that the devil, the tempter, first appears in the form of something small that just 'bugs' you incessantly, a nagging thought or irritation that grows to become major and dominates your thinking entirely. Where's that wikipedia page I learned this from? Here it is: Beelzebub. Ok, my bad—it isn't really a name for the devil, but one of the major demons. Mephistopholes or Mephisto. But again, I'm not sure if these are the kind of colloquial names you're looking for. Or even if they're alternate names for Satan, or just demons. Actually I just checked his Wiki page and it turns out he's a demon.
The infernal names—Again not exactly names for the Devil, but it's getting close, and might be what Seven Crowns was talking about? Ah ok, I didn't see the link Seven Crowns posted, or that he said the name of the book. Good to know at least all the names I mentioned are included on the list. I thought they were.
Sometimes demons are called devils, or something confusing like that. What's that line from Bohemian Rhapsody? "Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me". There seems to be some Satanic fuzziness of idea about what they actually are, or the names. An interchangeability. Seems appropriately Satanic. Originally the various names for the devil in the Bible didn't even refer to the same figure.
I've also noticed a lot of similarity between Dracula and Satan, such as that both can appear in various forms, including as a swarm of insects (or is it a swarm of rats for Dracula?). Never looked any deeper into that, but Drac might be a sort of devil in his native homeland. Dracula was a tempter who takes your soul if you allow him to, if you're taken in by his illusions and lies.
Here's another list but there's plenty of overlap with the ones already posted: https://royalgirlz.com/what-are-the-names-of-the-devil/amp/ One name I don't see on any of these lists is "heel bruiser". It might be obscure, but most bible thumpers will get it. You could just make up one like that which is appropriate too if you don't find anything you like.
Very interesting—I was looking for more folktale names for the devil (or a devil), and found this: Folk devil @ Wikipedia It seems highly relevant to both of your current threads (well, maybe moreso your other one): Excerpt: Folk devil is a person or group of people who are portrayed in folklore or the media as outsiders and deviant, and who are blamed for crimes or other sorts of social problems; see also: scapegoat. The pursuit of folk devils frequently intensifies into a mass movement that is called a moral panic. When a moral panic is in full swing, the folk devils are the subject of loosely organized but pervasive campaigns of hostility through gossip and the spreading of urban legends. The mass media sometimes get in on the act or attempt to create new folk devils in an effort to promote controversy. Sometimes the campaign against the folk devil influences a nation's politics and legislation.
Don't you love that irony? Bee;zebub was the guy who bothered Freddie Mercury and Tenacious D. ;o) The apostrophe is in the right spot for Ba'al. And it's also the last name my Devil uses when he's human-ing around: Tobias Baal. And Tobias is long for Toby, which I thought was a funny little reference. I'm basically looking for anything that would normally be said in a Southern drawl. Seems like "country folk" always have the best words for things. I didn't look further into this, but I seem to remember reading somewhere that originally the devil isn't really in the bible. Satan refers to an antagonist, or enemy. But I didn't do any further research on it because it didn't suit me. I'm a great scientist like that. ;o) Yeah, that! In fact, it helped you linked to the "infernal names" because I read "informal" and realized I hadn't tried that yet. Did think about that, and I'm confident context will do the rest, but the only stuff that comes to mind is obvious joke stuff that doesn't quite sound natural enough. There's something going on there, yeah. Never did have a lot of faith in a guy who comes down the chimney to steal cookies I was saving for breakfast. Then again, he did bring me Legos, so I could overlook some shenanigans. That's basically just the devil's problem, isn't it? A PR problem. Should be an easy fix. "Hello, my name is Toby. Welcome to eternal damnation. You're going to be here a while, so here is a Lego pirate ship, but without the instructions."
"And of course, we're in a furnace, so it's already melting. Oh, and there's one piece missing too. MuahaaaahaaahaaHAAAAAAAAAAAA!!! You'll find it, but only when you step on it—barefoot!"
More and more I'm realizing that devils and demons are of a type—folklore/mythology characters who tempt people and trick them, and take their soul or something equivalent. Like djinns and genies, who grant your wishes but always with a twist. They seem to represent the dangers of satisfying the ego desires. In fact in many ways the devil is just a representation of pure ego with all its arrogance and no humility.
I think the Old Testament term for the devil can be translated as "The Adversary", which sounds similar to The Enemy, but I feel like it has a lawyerly tone, as if he were God's Chief Prosecutor. He certainly seems that way in the book of Job anyway. If you want an inspiring feel for the way country folks talk about the supernatural, I heartily recommend the works of Manly Wade Wellman, especially the Silver John tales.
Yes. "The Adversary" or "the Accuser" is what "Satan" means. It's definitely a courthouse term. Satan accuses the saints (like Job), telling God the Father, the Judge, why He should punish them for their sins. Then Christ, the Son of God, the divine Advocate, steps forward and says, "No, I already took the punishment for them, they're no longer guilty." Whereupon God says, "That's right, You did! Not guilty!" The saints are discharged without a stain on their character and the devil goes off gnashing his teeth.
Friendly neighborhood Bible thumper here. It's from the curse of God upon the Devil/serpent in the Garden of Eden. In the King James Version (which the people you're talking about would use) it says, "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel" (Genesis 3:15). Note that anyone who used "heel-bruiser" of the devil would also be thinking of "devil's head bruiser/crusher/smasher" of Christ, the woman Eve's perfect Seed. It'd be like, "that old devil, he's a bad un, but my Jesus, He got the better of him, yes, He did!"
You've also got "Prince of the power of the air" or "ruler of the kingdom of the air" (Ephesians 2:2) and, more colloquially, "the airy man."
Of course there's the Prince of Darkness, Prince of Lies, and Prince of This World. These are more like Biblical terms though, rather than colloqualisms.
Strangely, it kinda paints Satan as the good guy here. He wants the guilty party punished for stuff they did, like, "These dipshits stole my apples!" And then Jesus goes, "Nah, bruh. I got it covered." God goes, "Alright, no apples were officially stolen. Now get out of my courtroom, I'm trying to build a platypus and you kids keep bothering me." No one gets their comeuppance, no lessons were learned, and the platypus is a mess. I saw that in one of the lists, yeah. But it's a little confusing. I'd assume that people already thought of the power of the air as a good thing, pushing their rickety boats along and stuff.
That's a specific torture for people who bring kids to grown-up places and then get pissy about there not being facilities for kids.
