"How'd I do?
I'll tell ya - I got bupkes! I got nothin'!"
Yiddish word that, translated literally, means "peanuts" or "beans".
Commonly used in the US to indicate "nothing", presumably because beans are seen as worthless. Think about it: beans cost peanuts, right?!
Also implied in the phrase "getting bupkes" is a hint of ironic inevitability and the suggestion that the (non-)recipient feels cheated and insulted.
Spelling variations include:
- bubkes
- babkes
- bobkes
- bupkis
- bubkis
As
Jurph points out, another translation is "
goat turds", which are generally accepted to be of even less value than
beans or
peanuts.
References
http://www.canoe.ca/JamBooksReviewsY/yiddish_gelman.html
http://www.asinine.com/essays/yiddish.html
http://chutzpah.homestead.com/files/dictionary.html