And this we doubt not has given rise to that other vulgar expression, "I don't care a curse";—curiously parallel in its corruption to that in illustration of which we quote it.
[This suggestion about dām was made by a writer in Asiat. Res., ed. 1803, vii. 461: "This word was perhaps in use even among our forefathers, and may innocently account for the expression 'not worth a fig,' or a dam, especially if we recollect that ba-dam, an almond, is to-day current in some parts of India as small money. Might not dried figs have been employed anciently in the same way, since the Arabic word fooloos, a halfpenny, also denotes a cassia bean, and the root fuls means the scale of a fish. Mankind are so apt, from a natural depravity, that 'flesh is heir to,' in their use of words, to pervert them from their original sense, that it is not a convincing argument against the present conjecture our using the word curse in vulgar language in lieu of dam." The N.E.D. disposes of the matter: "The suggestion is ingenious, but has no basis in fact." In a letter to Mr. Ellis, Macaulay writes: "How they settle the matter I care not, as the Duke says, one twopenny damn"; and Sir G. Trevelyan notes: "It was the Duke of Wellington who invented this oath, so disproportioned to the greatness of its author." (Life, ed. 1878, ii. 257.)]
1628.—"The revenue of all the territories under the Emperors of Delhi amounts, according to the Royal registers, to 6 arbs and 30 krors of dáms. One arb is equal to 100 krors (a kror being 10,000,000), and a hundred krors of dams are equal to 2 krors and 50 lacs of rupees."—Muhammad Sharīf Hanifī, in Elliot, vii. 138.
c. 1840.—"Charles Greville saw the Duke soon after, and expressing the pleasure he had felt in reading his speech (commending the conduct of Capt. Charles Elliot in China), added that, however, many of the party were angry with it; to which the Duke replied,—'I know they are, and I don't care a damn. I have no time to do what is right.'
"A twopenny damn was, I believe, the form usually employed by the Duke, as an expression of value: but on the present occasion he seems to have been less precise."—Autobiography of Sir Henry Taylor, i. 296. The term referred to seems curiously to preserve an unconscious tradition of the pecuniary, or what the idiotical jargon of our time calls the 'monetary,' estimation contained in the expression.
1881.—"A Bavarian printer, jealous of the influence of capital, said that 'Cladstone baid millions of money to the beeble to fote for him, and Beegonsfeel would not bay them a tam, so they fote for Cladstone.'"—A Socialistic Picnic, in St. James's Gazette, July 6.
[1900.—"There is not, I dare wager, a single bishop who cares one 'twopenny-halfpenny dime' for any of that plenteousness for himself."—H. Bell, Vicar of Muncaster, in Times, Aug. 31.]
DAMAN, n.p. Damān, one of the old settlements of the Portuguese which they still retain, on the coast of Guzerat, about 100 miles north of Bombay; written by them Damão.
1554.—"... the pilots said: 'We are here between Diu and Daman; if the ship sinks here, not a soul will escape; we must make sail for the shore."—Sidi 'Ali, 80.
[1607-8.—"Then that by no means or ships or men can goe saffelie to Suratt, or theare expect any quiett trade for the many dangers likelie to happen vnto them by the Portugals Cheef Comanders of Diu and Demon and places there aboute...."—Birdwood, First Letter Book, 247.]