A cattle Baron shot him with two blasts from a shotgun at point blank range but Heck survived. Heck put out a $500 reward for His would be killer and he was delivered quickly. Heck tied the guy to a fence and spent hours using him as target practice (while drinking) and finally put a bullet through his head.

Heck sliced off the man’s ears and used them as a watch fob for many years until a posse of cattle rustlers Lynched him.

His Wife Embalmed him in alcohol and he is now buried in Utah near Salt Lake City.

The target practice he did on his would-be killer was phrased as “Giving them Heck” and it has stuck around through time.

I understood that ‘Heck’ originates from the (northern English, presumably Old English) phrase “By Heck!” which I believe was a contraction of “By Hecate!” – Hecate being a god of spirits and witchcraft. Much like “By Jove!” where Jove = Jupiter = Zeus.

In fact, it’s Scottish – hech is a Scots interjection of surprise or shock, and is ultimately the same word as hey (or heigh).

I’ve just seen one rather outrageous suggestion on the Interwebs that it’s a portmanteau made out of hell and fuck. Nonsense.

As for Mary of Heck, she was in fact Mary of Teck. Teck is a castle in Germany, and Duke of Teck – which Mary’s father was – was a courtesy title bestowed upon the son of the Duke of Württemberg.

Even so, she was in no real sense from Teck – Mary was born and raised in London.

~ yoshishikko

about the “heck”, that’s possible but we don’t really know… Dati, I thought FTW means “Fuck The What?” but it’s “For the Win” pala. But someone told me that “Fuck the What?” is acceptable.. so we really don’t know since this is internet and we can define almost anything.