Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Damn Your Eyes!

Samuel Beckett provides an endless font of archaic phrases in his novels and a bit of dialogue in Murphy provided the relatively ancient expression: "damn your eyes".

The etymology for this phrase is vacuous on teh interwebs, as it seems to be a folk expression. I did find an early origin when STERNE Tr. Shandy III. xii. 64 (1761) stateth: - From the great and tremendous oath of William the Conqueror, (By the splendour of God) down to the lowest oath of a scavenger, "Damn your eyes".

The 'eyes' addition to 'damn you(r)' is a synecdoche encompassing the cursed.

Employ it thusly:

"I told you not to use my pots and pans, damn your eyes!"

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