Some words mean nothing, others can mean anything, and some can mean either.
Comments I saw somewhere yesterday about double negatives—it was evidently aimed at people who don’t know nothing—made me think of some convenient words that can mean and replace both anything and nothing.
Some people might not know diddlysquat about such words, in which case they would also know diddlysquat about such words.
The function of diddlysquat or jackshit can, of course, be performed by things such as jackshit (or just shit, without the jacking) and bubkis, both of which also being able to replace both anything and nothing, depending upon whether the sense of the expression is negative or positive, respectively.
Care is required in the extended application of such expressions, as knowing your ass from a hole in the ground is not the same as not knowing your ass from a hole in the ground.
And now back to our regular programming.
