<a href="http://www.quinion.com/words/qa/qa-
jes1.htm">This guy</a> says the following:
There have been various theories, but the one that
seems most plausible is that it comes from the Greek
monogram for Jesus, IHS or IHC. This is formed from the
first two letters plus the last letter of His name in Greek
(the letters iota, eta, and sigma; in the second instance,
the C is a Byzantine Greek form of sigma). The H is actually
the capital letter form of eta, but churchgoers who were
unfamiliar with Greek took it to be a Latin H.
The oath does indeed seem to be American, first recorded
in print at the end of the nineteenth century, although
around 1910 Mark Twain wrote in his Autobiography that
the expression had been in use about 1850 and was
considered old even then. Its long survival must have a lot
to do with its cadence, and the way that an especially
strong emphasis can be placed on the H.
Nineteenth-century Americans weren?t the first to take the
Greek letters to be Latin ones?since medieval times the
monogram has often been expanded into Latin phrases,
such as Iesus Hominum Salvator, Jesus Saviour of Men, In
Hoc Signo (vinces), in this sign (thou shalt conquer), and
In Hac Salus, in this (cross) is salvation.
I think it stands for "Haploid". Yuk yuk yuk.
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