Green’s Dictionary of Slang

ding v.²

a euph. for damn v.

1835		A.B. Longstreet Georgia Scenes (1848) 17: Ding my buttons [...] if I didn’t know I should stumble.
1866		C.H. Smith Bill Arp 43: Ding it all, I found him in a store buying a haversack, fixing to go.
1871		Fayetteville Obs. (TN) 27 Apr. 1/3: Ding you! Who are you anyhow? [...] Ding it if I can tell you, must have been the devil [...] But ding it, man, I must obey orders.
1875		M. Thompson Hoosier Mosaics 48: Dast the luck! Ding the prize package feller! Doggone Bill Powell! Blame the old b’loon! Dern everybody!
1903		St Paul Globe 6 Sept. 14/6: Don’t let it work on you like that. Ding it, Jim.
1912		Day Book (Chicago) 8 Nov. 12/2: Ding it, I call it a doggone low, mean stinkin’ trick, that’s what!
1915		Tensas Gaz. (St Joseph, LA) 13 Aug. 8/1: Ding bust me [...] if it ain’t the patrol box. Boys, you’re pinched.
1938		X. Herbert Capricornia (1939) 528: Ding it — he’s looking right at me.
1939		W.C. Haight ‘Small Town Life’ in Mss. from the Federal Writers’ Project 🌐 Slang phrases I remember are pretty much the same today. Although we never used nearly as many as they do now: Golly dingit, Gosh darnit.

In exclamations

by ding! (also by dingy! by dinkey!)

(US) a euph. excl.

1845		in N.E. Eliason Tarheel Talk (1956) 269: He jumpt up and said by dingy that he did not believe his courage would be screwed up so high.
1931		E. Conkle ‘Madge’ in Botkin Folk-Say 162: Well, I sayed et, by dinkey.
1967		(con. 1920s) J. Thompson South of Heaven (1994) 103: Reckon we ought to [...] warn him, an’, by ding, I bet he don’t do no laughin’ at all, then.