Learn English – Where did the term “doggone it” come from

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Where did the term "doggone it" come from?

Best Answer

From Etymonline:

doggone 1851, Amer.Eng., a "fantastic perversion of god-damned" [Weekley]. But Mencken favors the theory that it is "a blend form of dog on it; in fact it is still often used with it following. It is thus a brother to the old English phrase, 'a pox upon it,' but is considerably more decorous."

Others have it derived from the Scottish dagone, or "gone to the dogs," but there's a bit of debate about that.

From my own search, I found several pre-1851 uses. It looks like it may have first appeared in print in a British publication, albeit of an American vernacular dialog, in Adventures in Mexico and the Rocky Mountains by British explorer George Ruxton, 1847 (date check):

http://books.google.com/books?id=YX1NAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=snippet&q=goddam&f=false

It subsequently appeard three times in 1848 in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, in articles written by Ruxton while living in America.