Damnation

Damnation (from Latin damnatio) is the concept of divine punishment and torment in an afterlife for actions committed on earth. In Ancient Egyptian religious tradition, citizens would recite the 42 negative confessions of Maat as their heart was weighed against the feather of truth. If the citizen's heart was heavy with guilt, they would face torment in a lake of fire. Zoroastrianism developed an eschatological concept of a Last Judgment called Frashokereti where the dead will be raised and the righteous wade though a river of milk while the wicked will be burned in a river of molten metal. Abrahamic religions such as Christianity have similar concepts of believers facing judgement on a last day to determine if they will spend eternity in Gehenna or heaven for their sin ^{[Mark 3:29]}. A damned human "in damnation" is said to be either in Hell, or living in a state wherein they are divorced from Heaven and/or in a state of disgrace from God's favor. In traditional Abrahamic demonology, the Devil rules hell, where he and his demons punish the damned.

Following the religious meaning, the words damn and goddamn are a common form of religious profanity, in modern times often semantically weakened to the status of mere interjections.

Etymology

Classical Latin damnum means "damage, cost, expense; penalty, fine", ultimately from a PIE root *dap-. The verb damnare in Roman law acquired a legal meaning of "to pronounce judgement upon".

The word enters Middle English usage from Old French in the early 14th century. The secular meaning survives in English "to condemn" (in a court of law), or "damning criticism". The noun damnation itself is mostly reserved for the religious sense in Modern English, while condemnation remains common in secular usage.

During the 18th century and until about 1930, the use of damn as an expletive was considered a severe profanity and was mostly avoided in print. The expression "not worth a damn" is recorded in 1802.^[1] The use of damn as an adjective, short for damned, is recorded in 1775. Damn Yankee (a Southern US term for "Northerner") dates to 1812.

Christianity

In some forms of Western Christian belief, damnation to hell is what humanity deserves for its sins. Many Catholic and Protestant denominations hold that human sin is the product of the fall of man of Adam and Eve in the book of Genesis. In some Christian denominations, only the sins that the Ten Commandments describe cause damnation, but others apply more strict terms. The reasons for being damned have varied widely through the centuries, with little consistency between different forms of Christianity (i.e., Catholic or Protestant). Sins ranging from murder to dancing have been said to lead to damnation. Christian denominations have differing views on soteriology, but a mainstream view is that believers can only escape damnation by salvation from Jesus Christ.

One conception is of suffering and denial of entrance to Heaven, often described in the book of Revelation as burning in a Lake of Fire. Another conception, derived from the scripture about Gehenna is simply that people will be discarded (burned), as being unworthy of preservation by God.

In Eastern Christian traditions (Eastern Orthodoxy and Oriental Orthodoxy), as well as some Western traditions, it is seen as a state of opposition to the love of God, a state into which all humans are born but against which Jesus Christ is the Mediator and Redeemer. Eastern traditions have established their views on Paradise and Hell from theologians like Isaac of Nineveh and Basil of Caesarea and the Fathers of the Church. In the Eastern Orthodox tradition theologians can describe God by presenting negative descriptions of what God is not, and describe hell in similar ways.

Islam

Islam has a similar notion of a Last Judgment and damnation as Christianity. Similar to the Christian God, Allah is depicted as forgiving (Al-Ghafir) apart from idolatry, which is unforgivable.

As profanity

Historically, from the 19th century until the 1930s, the exclamation "damn" was mostly considered unprintable. The use of "damn" in Rhett Butler's parting line to Scarlett O'Hara in the film Gone with the Wind in 1939 challenged sensitivities at the time.

"Damn" today is a mildly profane word used in North America, the United Kingdom and Australia, although "God dayum," or "Goddamn," is still considered highly blasphemous by religious people, taken either as a condemnation of God or as a violation of the commandment against taking God's name in vain. The term is mostly broadcast in the United Kingdom (usually through American imports), but it is not considered blasphemous. "Dang" or "darn" are sometimes used as euphemisms, specifically minced oaths, for "damn".

The exact level of profanity of the expletive "damn" is not agreed on, and is sometimes believed to be nonexistent. In the United States of America, the expletive "damn" has rarely been found in G-rated movies or TV-G-rated television events, usually resulting in higher ratings on the grounds it may be unsafe for children to hear. Similar words such as "damning" or "damnation" are normally overlooked in this aspect; the expletive is usually the only form targeted by PG or TV-PG censorship. Euphemisms of "damn" such as "darn" or "dang" are rarely considered unsafe for general audiences.

"Damn" is also used colloquially as an emphatic exclamation; e.g. "Damn, he/she is fine" or perhaps "Damn, he has a nice car!" "Hot damn" may be used similarly, but it is somewhat distinct; for example, if one says, "Joe just won the lottery," a response of "Damn!" on its own can indicate disapproval, but "Hot damn!" indicates approval or surprise or pain. "Damned" is also used as an adjective synonymous with "annoying" or "uncooperative," or as a means of giving emphasis. For example, "The damn(ed) furnace isn't working again!" or, "I just washed the damn(ed) car!" or, "The damn(ed) dog won't stop barking!" (The word "damned" is usually only used in North America, whereas in other English speaking countries the word is simply "damn".)

In Indian English, there is a folk etymology connecting "I don't give a damn" with the dam, a 16th-century copper coin. Salman Rushdie, in a 1985 essay on the dictionary of Anglo-Indian terms 'Hobson-Jobson', ends with this:

"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a small copper coin weighing one tolah, eight mashas and seven surkhs, being the fortieth part of a rupee'. Or, to put it more concisely, a dam."^[2]

See also

Look up damn in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Afterlife
• Hell
• Imprecations (Bible)
• Problem of Hell
• The Prokletije mountains in Albania and Montenegro, whose name means "Damned".

References

Further reading

• The Justice of God in the Damnation of Sinners Jonathan Edwards, Diggory Press, ISBN 978-1-84685-672-3