"not worth a goddamn" (1793?)

[Jonathan Lighter]

1793 _Jack Sprit-Sail's Frolic: or, Sailors’ Humorous Cruize; in the Latitude of London_ (London: J. Roach) 33: Sall [a singer and prostitute] gave the liquor a genteel cant into his face, rapping out a terrible blasphemous oath, swore it was too good to wash out a mouth so ill-hung, for his was not worth a * * * * * * *.

  HDAS has 1847, in U.S. The number of asterisks is right (and unusual), but one hates to argue _ad ignorantiam_.

  JL


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