etymological question: "jack shit"

[Laurence Horn]

At 12:50 PM -0400 10/11/00, Douglas G. Wilson wrote:
>Spears' dictionary gives "jack shit" or "Jack Shit" as "a worthless
>good-for-nothing". Possibly this is a secondary development?

I'd think so.

>
>There are some parallels: "every man jack" = "every man". [Also consider
>the synonymous "every swinging dick".]
>
>"Jack" = "penis", "copulate [with]", "masturbate", among more than 20 other
>things.

these don't strike me as being relevant to the minimizer (= 'not even
...') use of "jack" or "jack shit".

>
>"He doesn't know jack" = "He doesn't know shit" -- but perhaps this
>equivalence is transferred not from "Not worth [jack] shit" but from
>"Didn't do [jack] shit", another popular favorite.

As I argued yesterday, the evidence from Farmer & Henley (1896) makes
it appear more likely that the relevant history traces back to a 17th
century coin regarded as essentially worthless and/or to an
expression in U. S. thieves' jargon for a small coin, in which case
"not be worth (a) jack" would antedate "not know jack".  (Recall the
"He wou'd not tip me a jack" citation from 1725.)  The transfer to
the epistemic context would occur later (cf. "not worth beans" vs.
"not know beans (about)").   Most minimizers originally referred to
objects of minimal quantity or value in the relevant domain, and it
seems to be more plausible that the epistemic (to not know jack) or
action (to not do jack) domains would be developments of the earlier
monetary ones.  Once the connection with currrency was lost, it would
have been naturally for the reanalysis and compounding ("jack" +
"shit") to proceed, although this is admittedly speculative.

>If this is the case, one
>might consider the following equivalences:
>
>Q: "What did you do all day?"
>
>A: "Jack." = "I didn't do jack." = "I did jack." = "Jack shit." = "I didn't
>do shit." = "I didn't do anything." = "Jacked off." = "Jacked the dog." =
>"F*cked the dog." = "F*ck all." = "Fanny Adams." [another personal name:
>perhaps a friend of Jack Shit!] = etc., etc. [I can personally vouch for
>the use of each of these; probably you can too.]

these all occur, but not in general interchangeably.  You're not
saying they're all synonyms, are you?

>Whatever the origin (and I'm curious as to what it might be), "jack shit"
>acts as an intensified form of "shit" (or of "jack"?) by virtue of having a
>superfluous or nonsense word attached, as with many other expressions:
>
>Don't know shit > Don't know jack shit
>Can't drive worth dick > Can't drive worth donkey dick
>Don't give a f*ck > Don't give a flying f*ck
>Don't give a hoot > Don't give a hoot in Hell
>Didn't do squat > Didn't do diddly-squat
>Not worth a cent > Not worth a red cent

"diddly-squat" as a minimizer (or more properly "doodly-squat") is
actually attested earlier than "squat", for what it's worth.  And
"fuck all" and "bugger all" are minimizers that don't derive via the
attachment of a superfluous modifier, at least not in a
straightforward way.

larry