in addition to the most popular combs. listed separately below, there are a number of less common phrs., all stating one’s absolute lack of interest in the topic, as listed here; examples are alphabetical rather than by date and the dating for these combinations can be anything from mid-16C to 1990s+.
In phrases
...a bean (also...a row of beans, ...beans)
Knickerbocker (N.Y.) Feb. xlix 138: ‘Well then,’ said the General, ‘I don’t care beans for the railroad.’.
‘Dads Wayback’ in Sun. Times (Sydney) 3 Jan. 1/7: ‘[A] cop don’t care a bean for drought or floods. hailstones, or grasshoppers’.
P. HighsmithStrangers on a Train (1974) 39: Mama, I don’t care a bit [...] I really don’t care a row of beans.
J. CaryHorse’s Mouth (1948) 61: I don’t care a blast for anybody.
S. Selvon ‘Calypsonian’ Foreday Morning (1989) 142: People looking at him as if he mad, but he don’t give a blast.
...a blow
‘’Arry on the River’ Punch 9 Aug. 57/1: That I’m sweet on true Swells you’re aweer, but for stuck-ups I don’t care a blow.
‘’Arry on the Elections’ Punch 27 July 39/1: ’E don’t want less beer, but more beer-money, ah! and ’e don’t give a blow / If he gits if from Rosebery [...].
Jackson & Lloyd [perf. Arthur Lloyd] ‘Don’t Say I Told You’ 🎵 Enjoy all the pleasure that comes in your way, / And don't care a copper for what people say.
Semi-Wkly Interior Jrnl (Stanford, KY) 8 Feb. 4/3: Nobody cares a copper whether the Kentucky is hit over the snoot with a bottle of rot-gut.
...a damn
O. GoldsmithCitizen of the World I xlv 198: Not that I care three damns what figure I may cut.
T. Creevey letter 5 Oct. in Gore Creevey Papers (1948) 103: I am as happy as a grig with little Thet, and don’t care a damn for Liverpool.
J.B. SkillmanN.Y. Police Reports 16: Previously to his incarceration in the black hole, he whispered audibly that ‘he did not care a d—n for a watchman’.
...a dash
Bulletin (Sydney) 20 Aug. 16/1: ‘I do not care a fig,’ said he, / ‘For Governmental glory. [...] / For frills and power to make a splash / I do not give a single dash.’.
D.L. SayersNine Tailors (1984) 66: I don’t care a dash about that, old thing.
...a dodkin
R. SpeedCounter Scuffle A2: For Man or Monster, car’d he not a Dodkin.
...a doit
CongreveLove for Love III i: Body o’ me, he does not care a doit for your person.
...a doodle
N. AlgrenWalk on the Wild Side 217: Mama let him know no one cared a doodle in a wood how great he was.
...a dot
E. GreeyQueen’s Sailors II 160: He didn’t care a dot for him.
...a dump
‘Bill Stroke’Em’ in Gentleman’s Private Songster in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) III 380: She struggled hard, but ’twas no use, / He didn’t care a dump.
R. Barham ‘Lay of the Old Woman Clothed in Grey’ Ingoldsby Legends (1842) 265: His Holiness not only gets the ‘cold shoulder,’ / But Nick rumps him completely, and don’t seem to care a / Dump – that’s the word – for his triple tiara.
‘The Man About Town’ Nobby Songster 18: He cares not a dump, / Who kisses the rump, / of Sarah the blowen!
Sun. Times (Perth) 15 June 4/6: No one cares a dump / Or a tinker’s blast.
Bulletin (Sydney) 17 Dec. 18/1: The barmaids had gone out on strike, / They would not pull the pump – / For threats of Bung and wheedlings / They did not care a dump.
G. Jennings The Bathroom Door (1917) 18: I don’t care a dump.
N. LindsayAge Of Consent 232: They don’t care a dump for the law.
...a farthing dip (also...a twopenny dip)
‘Ian Hay’Lighter Side of School Life 124: The electorate of this country [...] do not care a farthing dip about Education as such.
A. ChristieSecret Adversary (1955) 210: I could see at the time you didn’t care a twopenny dip for me!
...a fly
ChaucerReeve’s Tale line 4193: Aleyn answerde, I count him nat a flye.
D. LyndsaySatyre of Thrie Estaits (1604) 8: I wald nocht giv ane sillie flie, For your treasure.
Nice Wanton Biiii: I care not for you both, no not a fly.
Jack Juggler in Dodsley II (1874) 120: But I woll not give for that boy a fly.
‘A Shepherd Kept Sheep’ in FarmerMerry Songs and Ballads (1897) IV 121: Shepherd for thee I care not a fly.
...a (good) god damn
Dublin Eve. Mail 4 May 4/3: I do not care a good god damn who you are.
Sporting Times 1 Mar. 6/5: If he breaks up the polismen the divil a hair I care.
P. KavanaghTarry Flynn (1965) 227: Sure it’s not that I’d care a hair if you had to keep away from her.
...a halfpenny
H. KingsleyHillyars and Burtons (1870) 361: Gerty did not care for the blacks one halfpenny.
...a jam
Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 23 Oct. 1/2: A spirit of ‘we don’t-care-a-jam’ prevails.
...a mag
LyttonPaul Clifford II 114: You cares not a mag if our party should fall.
J. GreenwoodLittle Ragamuffin 260: Ned Perks spoke of ‘not caring a mag about doing the job.’.
...a might
‘Herods Killing of Children’ Digby Mysteries (1882) 6: Though thei sharme and crye, I care not a myght.
...an ace
Mennis & Smith ‘Long Vacation’ Wit and Drollery 82: Or else that he deriv’d had been, / From Cod of King and nock of Queen, / For wight enthroned cares not an Ace, / For Wood-street friend.
...a pease
T. PrestonCambyses E2: If they had kild one another, I had not cared a pease.
...a pinch of snuff
G. GranvilleShe-Gallants II 1: But hang’t, all Women are Jilts, and I don't care this pinch of Snuff who has her.
C. MacklinMan of the World Act V: Why in a few days after he would nai care a pinch of snuff for her.
T. HaliburtonSam Slick in England II 162: None on ’em care a pinch o’ snuff for you.
...a preen
C. Nicol ‘Kate McFluffle’ Poems 63: No’ ae preen, did Katie care.
...a quinch
R. EdwardsDamon and Pithias (1571) Biiii: Howbeit I care not a quinch.
...a rag
B. TravenDeath Ship 17: We do not care a rag if you like the Dutch or if you don’t.
...a razoo
Sun. Times (Perth) 13 Aug. 11/8: He had to wear the ‘miserable things’ [i.e. spats] for years just to show that he didn’t care a razoo.
...a rideboy’s damn
F. BrownMadball (2019) 35: [H]e didn’t care a rideboy’s damn who had killed Irby.
...a sixpence
S. Johnson in Boswell Life (1906) II 461: You don’t care six-pence whether he is wet or dry.
‘Pot’ & ‘Swears’Scarlet City 82: I did not care sixpence about Mr Phatley’s rebuke.
... a skip
Dead Bird (Sydney) 29 Mar. 2/4: I hain’t modest, and the old woman don’t care a skip, but the gal is a leetle partickler.
...a snuff
E.L. LintonPatricia Kemball I 162: I don’t care a snuff whether you think me one or t’other.
Bulletin (Sydney) 11 Apr. 18/4: They are not liable to ‘corners’ and ‘rings,’ and the holders don’t care a snuff for all the ‘Boss Tweeds’ and ‘Jay Goulds’ in creation.
K. Amis letter 27 Aug. in Leader (2000) 650: Various creepy non-exhibiting painters, non-publishing writers etc. inhabit his ambience, but who cares a sod for them?
W. CarletonTraits and Stories of Irish Peasantry III 304: A man who did not care a traneen whether he drank with you as a friend, or fought with you as a foe.
J.M. SyngePlayboy of the Western World Act II: I wouldn’t give a thraneen for a lad hadn’t a mighty spirit in him.
S. O’CaseyShadow of a Gunman Act II: Nobody now cares a traneen about the orders of the Ten Commandments.
‘Myles na gCopaleen’Best of Myles (1968) 349: Naturally, I do not care a thraneen which it is.
...a turd (also...zebra’s turd)
Thersytes (1550) A v: I tell you at a woorde I set not a torde By none of them.
Misogonus in Farmer (1906) I iv: Your cunning is good, man, care not a turd.
Wandring Whore I 11: Should she care a T-- for him now she has got his mony, she would be thought too common.
in D’UrfeyPills to Purge Melancholy III 123: So away went the Virgin, and flew like a Bird, / And told the Spirits Husband every Word, / At which I replyed, I care not a T—.
‘White Thighs’ in FarmerMerry Songs and Ballads (1897) I 243: No envy have I, nor care a turd, / Whilst possessing such exquisite thighs.
in ‘Hurlothrumbo’Bog-house Misc. 9: And as good as his Word, / For he car’d not a T--d.
P. Larkin letter 1 Sept. in Thwaite Sel. Letters (1992) 66: I don’t give a zebra’s turd for any kind of job.
...a whit
R. Barham ‘Aunt Fanny’ Ingoldsby Legends (1842) 141: I care not a whit.
C. HolmeLonely Plough (1931) 110: Not that he really cared a whit for condemnation.
E. O’NeillServitude in Ten ‘Lost’ Plays (1995) 258: You care not a whit how you hurt their feelings.
...a whoop
Amer. Blacksmith 8-9 n.p.: Uncle Billy Martin says: ‘Most peepul are virtuous 'cause they're afraid o’ being found out—the others don’t care a whoop.
Mansfield (OH) News 7 Dec. 10?/3: The Clean Language League of America, which is plum nuts about being dead set against slang [...] not because it cares a whoop, but because such things always sound like heck to strangers.
Washington Herald (DC) 26 Mar. 53/2: She doesn’t care a whoop about you!
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