What is the origin of the curse, ‘Damn your eyes!’?
And just to beat everyone to the punch, Igor says ‘Too late!’
What is the origin of the curse, ‘Damn your eyes!’?
And just to beat everyone to the punch, Igor says ‘Too late!’
IIRC, Captain Bly’s book,* Mutiny aboard HMS Bounty*, or something like that, available on Gutenberg.org, has him quoting one of the mutineers as using that term. Don’t know of any earlier.
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["The OED’s earliest reference is from Tristram Shandy, 1761:
From the great and tremendous oath of William the Conqueror, (By the splendour of God) down to the lowest oath of a scavenger, (Damn your eyes)."](Take Our Word For It, page two, Words to the Wise)
You’re a scurvy dog, you are.