God save the mark

English Alternative forms en God bless the mark Etymology Plausibly originally a reference to the mark that a swindler fools: the swindler comments on how dull-witted the mark is and expresses a sentiment that is somewhat like en God love someone God love them (God bless them, en God help someone God help them) but carries the flavor of (1) may the Lord save them, because I and other sharpsters sure won't, and (2) en thank God for suckers and for the fact that en there's a sucker born every minute there's one born every minute. Pronunciation en ɑː(ɹ)k 4 Interjection en somewhat archaic Ironic expression of distaste for someone. 1 3 for he made me mad To see him shine so brisk and smell so sweet And talk so like a waiting-gentlewoman Of guns and drums and wounds,—God save the mark!— And telling me the sovereign'st thing on earth US 7 the gnawing pain, the sick faintness, the deadly stupor, the insatiable animal craving for mere food, all of which sensations are frightful enough to those who are, unhappily, daily inured to them, but which when they afflict one who has been tenderly reared and brought up to consider himself a 'gentleman,'—God save the mark! are perhaps still more painful to bear. en The New Yorker The Melancholy Gestalt of Isolation Peter Schjeldahl 2020 https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/12/21/the-melancholy-gestalt-of-isolation The world’s population is atomized among the dying, the ill, the quarantined, the sheltered, the heroically imperilled “essential” (never forget!), and, God save the mark, the blinkered fools. https://web.archive.org/web/20260709172241/https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/12/21/the-melancholy-gestalt-of-isolation 9 July 2026 en subjunctive expressions