got-damn

[Paul Mackin]

Sorry, I meant to  be answering Laura, not Derek. My bad.


On Dec 3, 2006, at 8:07 AM, Paul Mackin wrote:

>
> On Dec 2, 2006, at 5:32 PM, Derek Milner wrote:
>
>> Most of my relations in Arkansas use hot-damn instead of god-damn.  
>> Stranger yet, my uncle Skeeter says something approaching "hot-toe- 
>> mattie". I'm sure it puts a smile on god's face every time he does.
>>
>>
>>> Both euphemistic and regional (in a space and time sense).  Any  
>>> time and place the Bible rules, such euphemisms are employed.   
>>> Back in the 1960's, even in the lefty, atheistic NYC circles I  
>>> grew up in, the word "damn" was considered a little risque.  As  
>>> it still is in Bible-thumping circles.
>>>
>>> Got-damn is kind of cute, in that you avoid saying "God" while  
>>> letting the offensive "damn" slide.  A modern equivalent might be  
>>> "fuckin' a."
>
> Is WWII still thought of as modern? "Fucking a," short for "fucking  
> ass,"  originated as far as I know during that war.  Later in the  
> 60s when the word  "awesome" got to be  used as a synonym for  
> "excellent" "fucking a" came to stand for "fucking awesome." In any  
> case no euphemism is involved.
>
>
>
>>> American English has lots of these euphemisms -- they definitely  
>>> have a Western flavor (think Yosemite Sam):
>>> "gol-darned," "drat," "dern," and "dag nab it" come to mind.  I  
>>> read about some town, somewhere in the Bible Belt, that wanted to  
>>> pass an ordinance making "Heaven-o" the official greeting.
>
>
> Do you think "got-dam" in AtD is a euphemism?  Personally I can't   
> imagine that hard-bitten frontier miners and their families of  a   
> hundred years ago paid an once of attention to the second  
> commandment against taking the name of  the Lord  in vain.  
> Notwithstanding the fact that one town in AtD is said to  have more  
> churches than saloons.  To me "got-damn" is merely the way their  
> backwoods pronunciation of "god-damn" might sound to the literate  
> types Pynchon is writing for.
>
> In bye gone days euphemism sometimes played a part in publishing.  
> Norman Mailer's 1947? The Naked and the Dead is an instructive  
> example. Mailer  had his Pacific Theater infantrymen forever saying  
> "fug  you" to  each other. The actual word was a no-no at the   
> time. However no reader assumed that 40s soldiers fighting it out  
> in the South Pacific in 1944  pronounced "fuck" any differently  
> from how their grandsons and granddaughters pronounce it in Iraq   
> in 2006.
>
>
>>>
>>> Laura
>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> >From: Ya Sam <takoitov@[omitted]>
>>>> >Sent: Dec 2, 2006 12:29 PM
>>>> >To: pynchon-l@[omitted]
>>>> >Subject: got-damn
>>>> >
>>>> >One of the pet expressions of AtD characters. And again I don't  
>>>> remember
>>>> >reading it anywhere else. Is it some kind of euphimistic stuff  
>>>> (not to say
>>>> >'god-damn') or is it a more regional feature?
>>>> >
>>>> >_________________________________________________________________
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>

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