Mary

An exclamation of shock, surprise, or exasperation. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! Don't sneak up on me like that—you scared me half to death! I mean, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! Does my boss expect me to be on the clock 24 hours a day?

A place, location, or high-occupancy vehicle (especially a ship) that is inexplicably deserted or abandoned. An allusion to the Mary Celeste, an American merchant brigantine that was discovered floating off the Azores Islands in 1872 with no one on board and still in seaworthy condition. (Note: The variant spelling of "Marie" is the more common usage for the idiomatic reference, likely due to its use in a story by Arthur Conan Doyle.) We came upon a house in the woods, empty as the Marie Celeste, but left otherwise untouched.

An exclamation of alarm, amazement, or exasperation. (Could be considered blasphemous to some.) Sweet Mary, mother of God, I thought that car was going to hit me! Oh, sweet Mary, mother of God, could you work any slower?

A carrier or spreader of misfortune, as in I swear he's a typhoid Mary; everything at the office has gone wrong since he was hired . This expression alludes to a real person, Mary Manson, who died in 1938. An Irish-born servant, she transmitted typhoid fever to others and was referred to as "typhoid Mary" from the early 1900s. The term was broadened to other carriers of calamity in the mid-1900s.