Crap, diddlysquat, squat, shit, jackshit, jack.
Crap and cognates as universal quantifiers. It is indeed curious that words for excrement can assume this logical role.
'No one owes you crap' = 'No one owes you anything' = 'Nothing is such that anyone owes it to you' = 'Everything is such that no one owes it to you.'
'He doesn't know jack' = 'He doesn't know anything.'
'He doesn't know shit, so he doesn't know shit from shinola.' In its first occurrence, 'shit' functions as a logical quantifier; in its second, as a non-logical word, a mass term.
You Don't Know Jack About Kerouac. A Trivia Test.
Addendum (26 February): Steven comments, "I have my doubts about "crap" meaning "anything." I think it means "nothing", but appears in acceptable double-negative propositions which, because of widespread colloquial usage. The evidence I bring forth is the following. "You've done shit to help us" means "You've done nothing to help us," not "You've done anything to help us."
BV: I see the point and it is plausible. But this is also heard: 'You haven't done shit to help us.' I take that as evidence that 'shit' can be used to mean 'anything.' Steven would read the example as a double-negative construction in which 'shit' means 'nothing.' I see no way to decide between my reading and his.
Either way, it is curious that there are quantificational uses of 'shit,' 'crap,' etc!
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