From the Marlowe Collection

[00:05] Oh, we doing under Google rules. That was the play of super excited told us we had to
[00:17] say we said we signed up for it. In the end, it's going to be better and more true than
[00:26] Google can give you. Although I did hear one yesterday and I don't know, maybe you guys
[00:34] have a feeling about this. I was watching some racing. And then as it was, you know,
[00:41] talking about a guy trying to pass it on, he's like, Oh, yeah, he's trying his damnedest.
[00:45] I thought to myself, what? I've heard it a million times. I probably said it a million
[00:51] times. But when I stopped to think about it, I was like, I have no idea what this word
[00:55] means. Damnedest. Like, how did we make a superlative form of damned? And why? That's a good point.
[01:08] And what is your interpretation of what damnedest means? So definitely trying our hardest. So,
[01:17] you know, my thought was that this could somehow be, you know, trying so hard that, you know,
[01:24] you were willing to break the rules and for that reason would be damned.
[01:28] Well, that's so that it's interesting. That's what my inclination was the same, but it's
[01:33] also you're just throwing the kitchen sink at things. You're just willing to try anything
[01:38] at this point. And so maybe, yeah, that's it goes to goes to that. I don't know. What
[01:45] do you think, Coalson?
[01:47] Yeah, no, I actually have never really thought about the phrase. It's one of those things
[01:51] that just, you know, just kind of washes over you. Are you trying so hard, you're willing
[01:59] to be damned? I don't know.
[02:03] Yeah, that seems to be it's kind of what we're thinking, right? Are there other words that
[02:12] are past tense purlatives? Never heard one. It's got to be Shakespeare, right? Because
[02:18] who else is going to do that? Damnedest. And we assume that it's damn, it's damn like
[02:31] the curse word damn in. Well, I mean, damned isn't a curse word, right? If you're damned.
[02:43] Well, right. I mean, I just made right. But I mean, say, you know, damn, you say, yeah,
[02:48] if you say damn as a curse word, I suppose it is. It's like, I mean, it's short for
[02:54] God. Damned is the past tense of damn, which is apparently a curse word. But somehow, if
[02:58] it's past tense, it's not a curse word. I mean, that's in and of itself completely
[03:02] mysterious to me. Well, I though I think the reason is because there's separation, right?
[03:05] So I think if you say damn is shortening, technically for goddamn, right? And so that's
[03:10] why it's a curse. But saying God damned is very much a curse word in in use.
[03:18] Yeah. Yeah, I suppose. Yeah, I suppose if you say God damned, I guess it just depends on how you use it.
[03:29] Heard that a lot growing up. Now that's just past tense for. Yeah, I don't know.
[03:39] Yeah. And then you just you make it more. We made it more.
[03:43] Yeah, because I think you could say damn or damned in not a curse way.
[03:51] When you guys think people started saying damnedest. Like, is this a an Appalachian,
[04:00] you know, or a rural sort of mutation of a word that they. I do like that.
[04:10] Like, I was thinking Shakespeare, they just threw a stone for the heck of it. Right. Right.
[04:16] I think that's a really good guess. I guess I was leaning Shakespeare just because like it's a weird
[04:21] turn of phrase. And it does not. I mean, it sounds old timey as well. So yeah, I could totally buy
[04:27] that. But, you know, sometimes those homespun Appalachian things do too. Well, there are
[04:33] there other phrases than we in which we say damnedest instead of try my day. You say the
[04:39] damnedest thing, you know. Oh, OK. Sure. You do say you do say that. Yeah.
[04:45] In that context, it means something completely different than try your damnedest.
[04:50] Yeah. And in that case, it's just stranger out of the order.
[04:54] It's just the most outlandish. Right.
[04:57] And well, actually, I mean, that could work. Right. Trying your guys with the try throw
[05:04] everything. Yeah, exactly.
[05:05] Kitchen sink in. Exactly right. Yeah. So it's the most
[05:14] extreme thing and extreme things that you put in hell, basically. That's the idea.
[05:21] Yeah, I. I assume this comes out. I mean, I was going to say out of a religious period in human
[05:28] history, but that would be all of them. So I've got no I've got no I was trying to give.
[05:33] So yesterday or. Exactly.
[05:35] Trying to give a time period for it. And I got nothing.
[05:39] I like Shakespeare as a as an idea, but I don't know if it
[05:48] works and I am big pentameter well enough.
[05:53] Maybe it's from a sonnet. You don't know is.
[05:57] Yeah. It's very it's a very romantic for Marlow wrote this one.
[06:03] Yeah, exactly. It's part of the Marlow collection.
[06:06] So we've got a timeline. Anybody before we look this up?
[06:17] I'm going to Appalachia, but I like that. But what wouldn't like.
[06:21] Oh, so like early 19th century. Yeah, exactly.
[06:27] All right. I guess I'm going to go. I'm going to go 17.
[06:35] 90. England.
[06:41] Okay. Okay. According to dictionary dot com first recorded 1828 to 1830.
[06:50] So what did you say, Jason? You said early 1800s. Yeah.
[06:55] Early 1900. Yeah, really. You said early 19th century.
[06:58] Yeah, correct. Yeah. So I you nailed that.
[07:01] Nailed this. Yeah.
[07:03] I don't know about the Appalachian element.
[07:05] All right, where we got it means utmost or best informal vulgar.
[07:13] These are just definitions. I need origin.
[07:16] Yeah, I'm having trouble with the origin. Maybe I just.
[07:27] Well, we got the definition correct.
[07:31] That's good. We we speak our own language fluently. We learned that a lot on the show.
[07:36] It's reassuring. Right.
[07:39] All right. It's time to employ the AIs.
[07:42] Nice. Yeah. Chat GPT. Help us out.
[07:51] Yeah, it's I'm seeing that damned at some point became an intensifier and so
[08:00] damnedest was a logical.
[08:07] Bard thinks that it was first recorded in print in 1596.
[08:11] Whoa. Footnote, footnote required.
[08:20] So damn itself.
[08:24] Comes from old French, but the ultimate source is the classical Latin damnare
[08:31] or dampnare. We need to damage or condemn.
[08:41] And in Middle English, according to the OED, damn had three related meetings to doom,
[08:47] eternal punishment, produce pronounce a sentence or denounce or deplore.
[08:54] And it goes back as early as 1325, the word damn, not damnedest.
[09:00] Right. What was the date you gave?
[09:09] That was 1325.
[09:11] 1325. I'm seeing 1820 as well for the first recorded.
[09:24] Yeah. Chat GPT thinks American late 19th, early 20th century. Yeah, I don't. There's
[09:32] there's not much on this. No, this seems very, very colloquial, which
[09:39] which I think means it's Appalachian and therefore we're just going to give it to Jason.
[09:43] Right. Nailed it.
[09:49] Yeah, it gets. Yeah, I'm getting the weird, weird websites here. I need to probably stop.
[09:54] Yeah. Yeah. I've gone through the first like three tiers and yeah,
[09:59] we're starting to get into untrustworthy sources.
[10:04] Yeah, but it wasn't Shakespeare.
[10:09] Was not Shakespeare. We're going to give this one to Jason. We go Appalachia.
[10:14] Awesome.