[Ads-l] dassn't

[Jonathan Lighter]

'Dares not; dare not; dared not.'

I associate this with the Old West, but it seems to have been more
widely distributed.

Not, as far as I can tell, in OED:

1813 _Constitutionalist and Weekly Magazine_ (Exeter, N.H.) (June 8) 2
[GenealogyBank]: _From the Edenton, N.C., Gazette...And what there is
dasn't own the name.

1841 _Pensacola Gazette_ (Mar. 6) 1: I wanted tu laff,...but I dasn't.

1841 _Asheville [N.C,] Messenger_ (May 21) 1: YANKEE COURTSHIP...O
dear! I dasn't tell you.

1841 _Belleview [Ill.] Advocate_ (May 22) 3: You dasn't do that agin.

1842 _Shelby News_ (Shelbyville, Ky.) (June 1) 1: You dasn't deu that again.

1847 _ Luzerne Democrat_ (Wilkes-Barre, Pa.) (Dec. 8) 1: I don't
b'lieve he dassn't fur his life do any other way but promise.

1848 _The Democrat_ (Eufala, Ala.) (Feb. 23) 1: FROM THE BOSTON
TIMES... I dassn't to look at it, cap'n.

1852 _Alton [Ill.]  Daily Morning Courier_  (July 14) 3: I dassn't bend in 'em.

1853 _N.Y.Times_ (Aug. 6) 2: I "dassn't" say how many years.

1856 _Carolina Spartan_ (Spartanburg, S.C.) (June 5) 1: _Wants_ to
come out and walk, but _dassn't_.

Etc., etc.

2012  _Milwaukee Journal_ (May 31) 4B [GenealogyBank] : You Dasn't
Worry,/ You Musn't [sic] Cry.

JL

-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org