In my JLPT textbook, they have this sentence:

> 自分{じぶん}のない者{もの}に表現{ひょうげん}もへったくれもない。

The book provides a translation, which is this:

> You can't talk about expression if you have none (of your own ideas).

_(The "of your own ideas" part is built on the context from the previous
paragraph.)_

I'm having trouble seeing how we get to that translation, partly because I'm
not sure about the use of `へったくれもない`. According to my dictionary, `へったくれ` is
an expression meaning "to be damned", as in, "to heck with it". So I would
understand the sentence if it just ended there, but there's a `もない` as well,
which would seem to reverse that, meaning, in my mind, that you _can't_
discount self expression from someone without ideas.

Or maybe I'm not parsing it right, and it's not `へったくれ`, but the `へる` is
something else, like `減る`.

I don't know. It just confuses me. How do the parts of the sentence combine to
end up with the translation given?
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2013-04-04T11:21:47.413
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2013-04-04T11:31:38.297
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question
grammar word-choice jlpt
Can't parse sentence with 「へったくれもない」
The common idiomatic form of hettakure is `～もへったくれも<negative>`. The negative
is often just `nai`, but it can also be `V-nai` or even `aru mono ka` (=nai).
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2013-04-04T11:27:54.177
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answer