TO BE BLOWED, verb. phr.To be cursed, to be sent about ones business. BLOWED is euphemistic for damned; to all intents and purposes little more than a thinly-veiled oath. Hotten says that Tom Hood used to tell the following story, which tho long is worth immortality:I was once asked to contribute to a new journal, not exactly gratuitously, but at a very small advance upon nothingand avowedly because the work had been planned according to that estimate. However, I accepted the terms conditionallythat is to say, provided the principle could be properly carried out. Accordingly, I wrote to my butcher, baker, and other tradesmen, informing them that it was necessary, for the sake of cheap literature, and the interest of the reading public, that they should furnish me with their several commodities at a very trifling per-centage above cost price. It will be sufficient to quote the answer of the butcher:Sir,Respectin your note, Cheap literater BE BLOWED! Butchers must live as well as other pepeland if so be you or the readin publick wants to have meat at prime cost, you must buy your own beastesses, and kill yourselves.I remain, etc., John Stokes.
Cf., BLOW ME!
1835. DICKENS, Sketches by Boz, 50. Others remonstrating with the said Thomas Sludberry on the impropriety of his conduct, the said Thomas Sludberry repeated the aforesaid expression, YOU BE BLOWED.
1863. JEAFFRESON, Live It Down, III., 249. (Cries of Chair, Chair, and Order, order.) Order BE BLOWED! exclaimed the infuriated Mr. H.
1864. DICKENS, Our Mutual Friend, II., v. HOLIDAY BE BLOWED! said Fledgely, entering, What have you got to do with holidays?
1877. W. H. THOMSON, Five Years Penal Servitude, iii. 244. No, says she, weve got some more besides that, and enough, too, to take us to France. BLOWED, old man, if we dont go to Paris, and there we can get 300l. for them.
1879. Punchs Almanac, 7. Seasonable Slang. For Spring.You BE BLOWED! For Summer.Ill warm yer! For Autumn.Not so blooming green! For Winter.An ice little game all round.
1889. Ally Slopers Half Holiday, Aug. 3, 242, 2. BLOWED if Id have made her Mrs. Juggins, if Id have known she wor going te make a footstool of me!
1900. KIPLING, Stalky & Co., 4. Turkey, youd better covet a butterfly-net from somewhere. Im BLOWED if I do, said McTurk simply, with immense feeling.
1900. PERCY WHITE, The West End, 107. Ill see the letters BLOWED before I look at one of them!