Green’s Dictionary of Slang

bugger n.³

a semi-euph./synon. for damn n.

1922		Joyce Ulysses 82: I want to see about that French horse that’s running today, Bantam Lyons said. Where the bugger is it?
1962		A. La Guma Walk in the Night (1968) 4: I don’t work. Never worked a bogger yet [...] Work. Eff work.
1978		(con. 1940s) J.G. Farrell Singapore Grip 179: I don’t think it matters a bugger whether they work as coolies.
1981		G. Young Slow Boats to China (1983) 341: He strode through the glass-fronted door in a short-sleeved flowered shirt, shorts and sandals. ‘You see me in my who-gives-a-bugger kit.’.

In phrases

not give a bugger (v.) (also ...two buggers, not care a...)

to not care at all.

1922		Joyce Ulysses 550: I don’t give a bugger who he is.
1943		Mass-Observation Report on Juvenile Drinking 11: F30D says ‘Those girls don’t care a bugger but having a good time.’.
1943		P. Larkin letter 2 Jan. in Thwaite Sel. Letters (1992) 54: Well, if your New Year resolution is not to let any bugger bugger you about, mine is not to give a bugger for any bugger.
1951		D. Stivens Jimmy Brockett 167: I don’t give a bugger who’s saying it!
1959		C. MacInnes Absolute Beginners 175: Now you listen to me [...] and I don’t give a b——r what you think.
1968		J. O’Grady Gone Troppo (1969) 21: ‘Don’t give a bugger,’ the mailman said.
1976		C. Dexter Last Seen Wearing in Second Morse Omnibus (1994) 451: I shan’t give two buggers if we never find her.
1986		A. Bleasdale No Surrender 35: Nowadays [...] the kids don’t give a bugger.
1991		J. Osborne Déjàvu Act I: I don’t give a bugger for Brazil.
1996		P. Temple Bad Debts (2012) [ebook] Too busy fighting their factional wars to give a bugger about the voters.
1997		H.R.F. Keating Soft Detective 5: And I don’t care a bugger.
1999		Observer 18 July 25: There’s some of me as doesn’t really give a bugger about it.
2009		P. Temple Truth 278: Never mind that Steve was twelve years old. Perhaps Bob just didn’t give a bugger.