Learn English – “Zilch. Every. Dang. Year.” – what does it mean

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I found Zilch. Every. Dang. Year. in A bittersweet farewell to the Obamas at their last White House Easter egg roll.

Zilch is nothing at all

What does Zilch. Every. Dang. Year. mean in this article?

Best Answer

The key to understanding this comes in the article's next two sentences, which I will abridge here:

We’ve entered the lottery for years now, hoping each time get lucky. And every year, we came up snake eyes.

Of course snake eyes means a bad roll in dice, and zilch is slang for "nothing."

So, the writer is saying:

Year after year, we got nothing.

but saying it in a way that reveals frustration. I imagine her saying it through gritted teeth, or maybe by pounding her fist on the desk with each word:

Every (bang!) dang (bang!) year (bang!).

Putting a period after each word in a short phrase has been gaining traction lately; it's intended to help the reader regard each word emphatically and express emotion. You can read more about it at this ELU question.

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