A friend recently used the phrase bane of my existence, and while I’m familiar with the phrase, I would like to know its origin and meaning.
Learn English – the origin and meaning of the phrase “bane of the existence”
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Charles E. Funk suggests that its origins are "completely unsolvable."
I am of the opinion that the phrase is pseudo-profanity derived from "Hell's Bells", but there is no evidence of that, either.
The aphorism was coined by the Dallas Cowboys quarterback, Don Meredith, who later became a sports commentator for the TV show Monday Night Football in 1970.
17 December 1970, Ada (OK) Evening News, pg. 7, col. 1:
Howard Cosell: “If Los Angeles wins, it’s a big one, but San Francisco is still very much in it.”
Don Meredith: “If ifs and buts were candy and nuts, we’d all have a merry Christmas.”
Howard: “I didn’t think you’d remember that old canard.”
Don: “Is that what it was?”Source: Barry Popik.com
The 1970 quip soon became Meredith's catchphrase, but it was a modern and comical twist on a much older proverb dating from the 19th century
“If ifs and ands were pots and pans, there’d be no work for tinkers’ hands”
Oxford Reference
This proverb is used as a humorous retort to someone expressing a forlorn regret (e.g. if only I had the money...) or an unrealistic and perhaps over optimistic condition (... and if I had the right connections, I could be famous.)
The earliest example I found on Google Books is dated 1845 from The step-mother by George Payne Rainsford James.
“Ay! if ifs and ands were pots and pans, there would be no work for the tinkers.”
@Sven Yargs has discovered an even earlier example, in The New Monthly Magazine and Literary Journal, 1828, from a poem entitled A chapter of Ifs
A Chapter of Ifs
If Ifs and Ands were pots and pans,
’Twould cure the tinker's cares:
if ladies did not carry fans,
They’d give themselves no airs:
If down the starry skies should fall,
The starlings would be cheap:
If Belles talk'd reason at a ball,
The band might go to sleep.[…]
And finally, printed in 1821, an excerpt translated from a poem entitled Hans Beudix by the German poet Gottfried August Bürger (1747-1794)
Hans Beudix
Are you there, my old fox, with your ifs and your ans?
But I need not remind you, they're not pots and pans,
Else tinkers would starve, (as I learnt from my nurse;)
Still the answer shall pass, for it might have been worse.
The original German poem can be found here: Der Kaiser und der Abt. Maybe someone can confirm if the translation is faithful.
Below is an Ngram comparing the two aphorisms: Don Meredith's “...buts were candy and nuts” (blue line), and the German/British “ands were pots and pans” (red line) side by side in the American English corpus. The time span is between 1968 and 2008. The 1968-72 results for Meredith's coinage are false positives, so it's always wise to take Ngrams with a pinch of salt. No results are displayed for the American rhyme in the British English corpus.
If we expand the time scan between 1835 and 2008 we obtain the following
Best Answer
bane: a cause of great distress or annoyance
Therefore the bane of your existence is the chief annoyance or distress in your life, it is something that prevents you from enjoying life, turning it instead to misery.
From White Fang by Jack London:
Bane itself is an unusual word in English and outside of this common phrase it is rarely used in the modern language. According to phrases.org.uk it was present in the Old English Chronicles and meant 'murderer'. It can also be found in the common names of the plants henbane and wolfsbane, both of which contain deadly poisons.