Never heard it before. I guess it's silly swearing--like you'd imagine a
little kid might do. "Poopy-head" comes to mind.
"Shucks" is a euphemism for "shit," and "darn" is one for "damn."
--
Perchprism
(southern New Jersey, near Philadelphia)
> Never heard it before. I guess it's silly swearing ...
Yeah, I think I _have_ heard it (northeast Missouri, c. 1960), and
your hypothesis is correct. It might be someone's minced oath, but I
think silliness was more what the speaker I heard had in mind. Kind
of to denigrate the impact of supposedly bad news or information, so
that what might have elicited "Oh, shit", or "Oh, damn" got only a
faintly sarcastic "Oh, shucky-darn."
Gary Williams
I thought it also has overtones of mock-rural/hick usage as well as
silliness.
The only place I can remember seeing it was in an old Garfield comic
strip, when the cat and owner were visiting the farm. The cat didn't
want to be there; but when the owner's mother started to push food
at them, he says "Well shucky-darn and slop the chickens, I think I'm
gonna like it here...".
Harvey
Looks like a minced oath, a euphemizing of "shit" and "damn."
----NM