got-damn

[kelber at mindspring.com]

-----Original Message-----
>From: Paul Mackin <paul.mackin at verizon.net>

>
>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.

OK, fair enough.  I didn't realize the phrase dated back that far.  So far as I know, the "a" still implies "ass," though I can imagine some might use it to imply "awesome."  When used to imply "ass," however, the "a" becomes a cute euphemism.  "Snafu" is another euphemism which (I could be wrong here) dates from WWII.  Again, the point was to imply "fuck" without saying "fuck."


>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.


A hard-bitten miner might use the phrase "got-damn" in irony, or unthinkingly, because it's part of the local idiom.  No deliberate intention not to take the name of the Lord, etc. is required to use the phrase.  The origin of the phrase is still as a euphemism for people who did care about this sort of thing.

Laura