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Why?
This is a hill I'm willing to die on, and as such my expectations are pretty consistent. Thus damping is not really needed.
Doesn't mean my expectations are realistic though.
Ha! Well I was just having a laugh. Expecting that you would prefer "you should damp your expectations" and that my construction should mean "make your expectations wet." And it turns out dampen is ambiguous. It means both moisten and dull, deaden, make weak.
Not only that, but most every form carries both meanings, and the "weaken" sense for the word damp predates the "humid" sense. Because the noun came first and it was specific to suffocating fumes in a mine that would extinguish candles, and people.
So my take now is that dampening means both "making weak" and "humidifying, moistening." Only damping is specific to motion/energy. And I can't recall encountering anyone using damping to mean "making wet."
Calm down there and dampen your expectations some. He was joking.