In spoken English – or any other languages – the message that you convey may easily be misintepreted, resulting in confusion and argument. Here’s an example:
Compare
- You have nothing to do…
- There’s nothing you can do…
This is the question: “What can I do to help you?” – so how would you respond?
Response #1 causes confusion because it doesn’t answer the question. It could also anger the other party as “nothing to do” is an indication that a person is too free, or discreetly, lazy.
Response #2 means that nothing could be done about a certain issue. In other words, it is not possible for you to do anything about that issue.
So, if you have nothing to do, and you don’t want to do anything about it, then there’s nothing you (or anyone else) can do