dag, gone

Where I grew up people would say "daggone" as a kind of mild swear word — sometimes shortened to one syllable. "You failed the test? Dag." "Yeah, it was really important." "Daaaag, that's terrible."

My partner does not know this word. Also their PNW dialect has a vowel merger where "leg/beg" have the same vowel as "lag/bag."

This person is excited about a restaurant call "Deg Thai," and I cannot figure out why the excitement is so strong that they are using a West Virginia pseudo-cuss about it.