blamed

[Wilson Gray]

Again, I agree with you, Charlie, though I've heard just plain
"dadblame" about as often as "dadblame it." I've also heard the more
florid "got damp in the basement, but didn't get wet" and "got no
money in the bank."

-Wilson

On 8/20/06, Charles Doyle <cdoyle at uga.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Charles Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: blamed
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I've heard (probably used) "blamed" in that sense since my (East Texas) childhood in the 1950s/1960s.  I believe my assumption has always been that it somehow derives from the fuller (though still minced) curse "dadblame it"--which is surely based on "goddamn it," though I can't quite imagine the evolutionary process in phonological or semantic terms. "Dad" representing "God the Father"?? (I hardly think so!)
>
> --Charlie
> ___________________________________________
>
> ---- Original message ----
> >Date: Sun, 20 Aug 2006 07:06:25 -0700
> >From: "James A. Landau" <JJJRLandau at NETSCAPE.COM>
> >Subject: blamed
> >To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>
> >I used the expression "blamed if I know what..." and my son, 23 years old who has lived all his life in New Jersey, asked me what it meant.
> >
> >I thought this was a common figure of speech (along with "hanged if I...", "darned if I...", "damned if I...", etc) but perhaps not.
> >
> >     James A. Landau
>
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--
There's only one thing that money can't buy and that's poverty.

--Jack Benny

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