534: by jove May 25, 2016

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The king-god of the Romans, was Jupiter. Much like the common exclamation, "oh my God", or 'by God", "by Jove" is ultimately a religious reference. Although 'Jupiter' or 'iupiter' was the name the most powerful God, Latin declines its nouns depending on the function in the sentence. 'Jupiter' is used for the subject, but after that, the stem becomes 'jov-', for example the genitive form ("of Jupiter")–used to signify possession–was 'jovis'. The preposition, 'by' changes the syntax of the proper noun into ablative case which uses the '-e'-ending, so people would have to use the form 'jove'.

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