bupkis, bupkus, bupkiss » buttkiss
Spotted in the wild:
- “WHile I don’t know buttkiss about STREEM speakers, and they seem like they’re trying to overwhelm buyers with size and specs…” (link)
- “WEAVER as someone related to the project why don’t you just shut up…..mentioning names is out of line, you don’t know buttkiss about the …” (link)
- “Younger sports fans don’t know buttkiss…” (from Stocklin)
Analyzed or reported by:
- Rex Stocklin (American Dialect Society mailing list, 15 May 2005)
Only two examples from a Google web search, both given above — these against ca. 117 examples of spellings with the correct “p” from Yiddish (ca. 74 of them for “bupkis”).
A reshaping as “don’t know buttkiss” would fit into the collection of negative idioms “don’t know (doodly) squat”, “don’t know shit”, and the like. But such a small number of examples isn’t a lot to go on, so I’ve marked this one as “questionable”.
1
Commentary by Mark Pilbeam , 2005/06/04 at 10:47 am
Throughout my life uneducated Englishmen have referred to “nougat” (a French word pronounced “noogar”) as “nugget”.
As an Englishman I had never seen the word “Buttkiss” before. However, my immediate reaction was to assume that it is a corruption of the Yiddish word “bubkes” (sometimes spelled as “bopkes”) which has exactly the same meaning.
2
Commentary by estelle , 2005/06/04 at 10:53 pm
BUTKISS
betcha it’s from someone not understanding the yiddish term BUPKAS: not knowing much about the subject
i don’t know bupkas about that.
younger sports fans don’t know pupkas about the game.
3
Commentary by Arnold Zwicky , 2005/06/05 at 3:23 am
I suppose it’s my fault for not making it absolutely 100% clear that I understood that Yiddish was the source here. Now, as to how the Yiddish original is to be spelled in English — bobkes, bobkas, bubkes, bupkes, bupkas, bupkis, pupkas, bupkiss, etc. etc. — I make no claim, not even any claim that there’s one right spelling (why should I want to claim that?). All I’m suggesting is that some English speakers (ignorant of Yiddish, no doubt) have re-shaped the word into butt + kiss. That’s the eggcorn leap.