The 1922 novel

turbulent spell as Leeds United manager in the 1970s. Damn Yankees was a 1958 musical reworking the Faust legend of selling your soul for success.

But it was probably most famously used by Clark Gable in Gone With The Wind, when Rhett Butler tells Vivienne Leigh’s Scarlet O’Hara: “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.” To avoid censorship, Gable emphasized the “give” rather than “damn”.

In Margaret Mitchell’s 1936 novel, the line is slightly different: “My dear, I don’t give a damn.”