I am trying to think of a specific term/phrase that I can’t quite retrieve from the recesses of my mind. The hints for the phrase I am thinking of (or want to be thinking of, if only I could remember it) are:
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It refers to the nature of someone who is stubborn, pig-headed, ornery. Think “Jud” from Oklahoma!, or a commander who ends up getting all of his troops killed because of a lack of a willingness to deviate from the original plan regardless of how the battle unfolds, as an example.
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It is kind of an old-fashioned phrase, maybe 19th Century or early 20th Century, possibly an American country-folk phrase, or possibly a British English phrase.
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I think it consists of multiple elements.
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I think it ends in “-ness”.
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I think its elements indivudually sound nicer than the meaning as a whole, like some Southern phrases.
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I think maybe it contains the word “blessed” with the “ed” distinctly pronounced: “bless-ed”
The closest I can come up with is “God-blessedness,” except that doesn’t mean what I am thinking of, but if it did refer to someone who was ornery that would be an example of what I mean in #5.
#3, #4, #5, and #6 are not absolutes; they are only my vague impressions of the phrase as I am trying to recall it. The phrase that triggers a “That’s it!” in my mind might not have all of those attributes.
Although these are in the right vicinity, the term is not:
Mule-headedness
Pig-headedness
Mulishness
God-blessedness
Mother-blessed
It is not a made-up phrase, it was something that was used, if now archaic. I will know it when I see it.
Any ideas?
