Not worth a tinker's dam
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“Not worth a tinker’s dam” is not cursing.
Ages ago tin smiths did part of their work by using clay to build a dam around the focus of their work. Inside of that dam, they could pour (and thus retain) molten tin until it cooled and solidified. When they were ready to clean up that part of the job, they salvaged the unused tin, very expensive at the time. They disposed of the dam because clay was so plentiful as to be worthless after having been used once.
Thus the phrase,
“ ...not worth a tinker’s dam.”
[edit] ALTERNATE PHRASE
“not worth a dam.”
The following are incorrect because dam is misspelled.
“not worth a tinker’s damm.”
“not worth a damm.”
“worth a damm.”
