ain’t nobody gonna give a good cahoot

[Andrew Patterson]

If you don't respect yourself, the Staple singers warn you this in the song, "Respect yourself."

Context suggests that this means something like care about something or somebody's well-being.

Yet "in cahoots" implies an association which is at best a bit shady, which is out of tune with the song's generally positive message. So I guess "a good cahoot" doesn't have a negative meaning. Not that I've heard of "a bad cahoot" then again, given the already negative meaning of "in cahoots", that would seem somewhat redundent.

Do I read this expression correctly and just how common is this expression outside this song?

And if nobody answers, I guess ain't nobody give a good cahoot about the question.

[metal56]

If you don't respect yourself, the Staple singers warn you this in the song, "Respect yourself."

Context suggests that this means something like care about something or somebody's well-being.

Yet "in cahoots" implies an association which is at best a bit shady, which is out of tune with the song's generally positive message. So I guess "a good cahoot" doesn't have a negative meaning. Not that I've heard of "a bad cahoot" then again, given it's already negative meaning of "in cahoots", that would seem somewhat redundent.

Do I read this expression correctly and just how common is this expression outside this song?

And if nobody answers, I guess ain't nobody give a good cahoot about the question.

I think it's a play on two things: "a cahoot", there meaning a good partnership, and "give a hoot for", meaning have concern for someone/thing.

[Stephen Jones]

http://joysjottings.blogspot.com/2005/1 ... ahoot.html

[metal56]

http://joysjottings.blogspot.com/2005/1 ... ahoot.html

I can't find sources which give Joy's definition of "a cahoot" as "a shady, if not illegal, collaboration between at least two people". It may have negative semantic prosody in modern use, but that doesn't mean it is originally a "negative" word.

Interestingly, the word "cahoot" does not appear at all in the British National Corpus (BNC). "Cahoots", on the other hand, appears 16 times in one million words and is always collocated with "in" there.

[Andrew Patterson]

The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary 1972 defines "cahoot" in the main body thus:
U.S. 1829. [Origin unkn.] A company or partnership. Hence cahoot v to act in partnership.

But in the addenda it appears thus:
Freq. pl., esp. in phr. in cahoot(s) with (orig. U.S.: in league or partnership (with).

I'll check it with the Longman Learners dictionary on Monday.

I thought "in cahoots" was American in origin and the song itself seems to be in (?Southern) Black American English.