"Honest to God and hope to die"

[Joanne M. Despres]

All I've been able to find in our files is a slip with the heading "hope
to die," the label "new words," and a reference to "Slang Collected
by T.A.K. before 1920" (but no definition). I've not been able to find
a published work by that title in the card catalogue, leading me to
suspect that the initials belonged to an editor, though which one I
couldn't say for sure (perhaps Thomas A. Knott?).

I grew up hearing "cross my heart and hope to die," as well as the
apparently euphemistic variant, "cross my heart and hope to spit,"
in northeastern MA during the 60s.

Joanne Despres
Merriam-Webster