"As if I could give a hang!" Now what could be the derivation of that phrase?

Has it already been discussed? Are you gonna say, "LIU!" Are you gonna pull "YART" on me? As if I could give a hang!

No, really, rudeness aside from the very bored, very irritable Wordwind, I really would love to know where that terrifically useful phrase comes from because I really do give a hang about it, whatever a hang is. I better be careful here since I don't know what a hang is!

Bored regards,
WordWilting

Interesting idiom.. i would guess, Damn gave way to dang.. and dang morphed into hang..
"as if i could give a damn" = "as if i could give a hang"

just as "YO" is realy "here"-- it followed the same path as Whore did to end up as "hoe". William Safire covered the changes some years ago..

Dear WW: I think it is a stock phrase used by uninventive types.
You just start with "I don't give a __________ and then fill blank
from a long liest: a shit, a turd, a damn, f..., etc, etc.

similar to my middle school students who are so pleased to be able to say:

"shi....take mushroom"....

I've never heard "hang" used in that context. I have heard it used frequently as the truncated form of "to hang in there," i.e. to endure. For example: Joe started to train to be a Navy S.E.A.L. but the training was so tough that he couldn't hang, so he quit.