bugger

[Larry Horn]

At 1:02 PM -0700 4/27/99, A. Vine wrote:
>Beverly Flanigan wrote:
>>
>> Andrea Vine wrote:
>>
>> >>I always assumed this was Anglo snobbery, just as posh invitations
>>will use
>> >>"colour" and "harbour", and even a character on 'Ally McBeal' last night
>> cursed
>> >>with the word "bugger".
>> >>
>> Cursed with the word "bugger"--is that a Britishism?  Was it a noun or a
>> verb?  My dad (b. 1900, Minnesota) always used "bugger" (n.) to refer to a
>> somehow-despised person; the first vowel was a wedge (upside down V).  A
>> student of mine from Wisconsin, on the other hand, named his dog "Bugger,"
>> pronounced with /U/.  For my dad, the word was a derogation; for my student
>> it clearly was not.  I'm aware that the word could also be a verb--but is
>> it British only?  (I don't use it in verb contexts....)
>
>"Bugger" in the sense of "damn".  I believe the context was that some bad news
>on a case was given to one of the attorneys, to which he said "bugger".
>
Don't forget its use (also regionally restricted) as an intensifying
adverb, analogous to other expletives occurring in this frame:

        There's {bugger all/fuck all} I can do about it.   [i.e. 'nothing']

Larry