Learn English – What does ” ‘Nation ” stand for in this context

apostrophedickensliterary-english

I was reading the novel A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. In Chapter 2, there are sentences like:

“I hope there ain’t, but can’t make so ’Nation sure of that,” said the guard, in gruff soliloquy. “Hallo you!”

I don't know what that apostrophe in the word 'Nation stands for. I searched for it on the Internet and in dictionaries, but could not discover the answer. Or is this just a printing error? (In China, Google is banned, so the only PDF I can find is the Project Gutenberg edition, which has the same text in this spot.)

Can anybody help me with this?

Best Answer

How about this:

Damnation [...] 3. In profane use: [...] b. as adj. or adv. = 'Damned'.

Their first example is from 1757:

"The wit with metaphors makes bold, And tells you he's damnation cold."

There are two more examples: Damn'd old puns over damnation hot tea in Cambridge (1772), and a damned Frenchman with his damnation horse (1843).

(Source: OED)

PS: In these three examples, damnation clearly was chosen instead of damn for somewhat technical reasons: In the first so that the line scans, and in the other two for variety. In Dickens' case I can see no such reason.

At first I found oerkelens' hypothesis convincing: avoiding censorship through creative abbreviation of a less commonly used variant. But the same chapter also has this: "So, then One more pull and you're at the top and be damned to you [...]". Incidentally, we can see another instance of unusual (to us) capitalisation here - again on a word that's likely to be emphasised.

Related Topic