Pete's Sake

Oh For Pete's Sake. A harlmess oath which is a safe replacement for "For Christ Sake," and one I use around the house quite a bit, i.e. "Would you please clean up that pile of cars for Pete's Sake!," or "For Pete's sake, please stop screaming" or "For Pete's sake would you get your hands out of your pants" or "For Pete's sake, please please please, stop jumping on my chest."
We do a lot of things around here for the sake of Pete. I hope he appreciates it. However, the use of that phrase has created a problem. Tiernan has begun to use it. But use it wrong. He's begun using "For Pete's Sake" as an insult. He comes up to me and says, "Daddy, you are a pete sake" or "Hey, you Pete sake, stop it."
On one hand I am happy that he's not using more, er, colorful language. It is a harmless phrase. One the other hand, I am a bit concerned that he's calling people names, kind of. In his mind he's name calling. But to anybody else he's not.
It reminds me of the old Monty Python's skit about the guy that wrote the Hungarian-to-English phrase book, using all the wrong phrases. For instance, the Hungarian phrase for "I don't understand" was to be translated as "My nipples explode with delight."
So Tiernan's been running around the house calling everyone a "Pete Sake" and we've been just brushing it off. Until the other day, when I tried to explain to him that he was using the phrase wrong. I pulled him over and tried to have talk with him and I said, "Tiernan, you are using that phrase wrong. 'For Pete's Sake' is a cliche. It is mild oath that people swear to St. Peter, who was Jesus's best friend and right hand man. When people say, 'Do something, for Pete's sake.' What they are really saying is 'Do something for to stay in the good graces of St. Peter and God and the chruch as a whole.'"
And Tiernan's looking at me like, "Huh? Dad, I am three. I don't know what you're talking about. So I stop me in-depth grad-school explaination of the origin of the phrase and lexocological foundations of mild-oaths and ask, "Why do you say that?"
And he responds, "Because it is fun to say. It is funny." To which I said, "Good. We will have another talk about Peter and what we should do for his sake another time."
By the way, he's currently running around the house calling his sister a "Cheesy Noddle" and laughing his head off. Now that is funny and fun to say.
For Pete's Sake, stop being such a cheesy noddle!