Kenneth G. Wilson (1923–). The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. 1993.
bugger (n., v.)
The problem with all senses and uses of bugger was always buggery, a noun meaning “sodomy.” Hence to bugger is “to commit sodomy,” and for many Americans that sense put all others under taboo. (In any serious context, most Americans would use the term sodomy rather than the term buggery, just to avoid being judged to use Vulgar or obscene slang.) Bugger also can mean something quite inoffensive, however: “a rascal, a little scamp” or “an uncooperative object or apparatus,” and these slang senses are quite without sexual referents. And of course a bugger is also someone who installs electronic bugs. When the British say Bugger all! they mean only something like “Damn!” or “Nothing!”
