> get lamp

My current status message in Instantbird is Go not to the confused non-elves for answers, for they shall say both "Buh?" and "Fucked if I know?" Today when I logged in and saw this I got curious about the "etymology", as it were, of the phrase "fuck(ed) if I know". Clearly it's one of the many English idioms that invoke the idea of being penetrated sexually, whether willingly (with the implications that the target is at least effeminate and possibly a "sodomite") or no. But why wish such idiomatic fucking upon oneself? Is it kind of an oath, saying "If I am lying to you when I say that I don't know, then I am just a filthy poof / may I be sexually penetrated against my will"?

(Not sure then exactly what the expansion would be of milder "hell/heck if I know", except that it's simply a substitution of milder swear words for the strong "fuck", and loses the actual sense of the verb in the process.)

This is a diagram of a four-way intersection of two paths. Corners A and D (or B and C) are:

1. Kitty-corner
2. Catty-corner
3. Something else

I usually say #1, but apparently #2 is better etymologically (from Old French catre, four).

(note to self: need icon for "curious")

eta: I wonder if this is related at all to cattywampus (which I would have spelled caddywompus). Wiktionary seems to think so since it links to cater-corner as a "see also".