That's what I first assumed, Bubb, but for your example sentence with 'nothing', the dictionaries all list the 'have' AND the 'be' versions as synonyms, with no indication which version came 'first' and which is therefore more 'proper'.

eg

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/e...

 be/have nothing to do with sb/sth

to have no connection or influence with someone or something:

We are nothing to do with the firm that has the offices next door.

In the evening he likes to read books and articles that have nothing to do with his work.

OED:

(b) Chiefly British. to be to do with: to be connected with, to be related to; to be of concern to. Cf. to have to do with (also †mid, †of, †on) at Phrases 1b(a).

 (i) With pronominal complement (what, anything, etc.) of be.

1906   Minutes of Evid. Royal Comm. Worcester Election 153/2  I have given it to him gratuitously, never thinking that it was anything to do with the Election whatever.

1929   P. Gibbs Hidden City xxxix. 189  It's something to do with that poisonous little beast Benito..the boy she dances with.

1937   H. Jennings et al. May 12th Mass-observ. Day-surveys (1987) ii. 360  He was full of grouses that it was nothing to do with him.

1959   Daily Tel. 12 Dec. 6/2  Association with the America of that period might involve her unnecessarily in troubles which were little to do with Asia.

2010   J. Powell Breaking of Eggs (2011) ii. 19  I came to realise that for Benoît it was all to do with money.

The version with "have" is much older, but the version with "be" isn't really a new trend any more either.

Hier wird u.a. auf die Frage eingegangen, ob "is to do with" chiefly brit. ist und -für mich überraschend- verneint:

Separated by a Common Language: be/have nothing to do with

Interessant ist übrigens, dass Ausgangspunkt der Frage ein Zitat aus einem Text von David Crystal war, der als einer der bekanntesten Sprachwissenschaftler der letzten Jahrzehnte tatsächlich "is to do with" schrieb.

#10

That's not a reliable source. Just to get a feel for where the author is coming from, here's how it starts out:

Now, I love queries that come with the homework already done. Farrrr superior to the ones with no greeting, no signature, no please and no thank you that demand that I explain why their spouse says such-and-such or why other people are idiots who say this-and-that. (I'd write "you know who you are", but such lack of self-consciousness in making demands of complete strangers is evidence of a lack of, well, self-consciousness.) And Tim did a good job of comparing the two phrases...except for one little problem. Can you spot it?

Before we get to the methodological issues, I'll answer his question. No, it's not a well-recogni{s/z}ed difference between BrE and AmE. Every source I've checked lists the two phrases as variations on each other, without noting anything about dialect, and sources on BrE/AmE differences...don't mention it either. [my bold]

Obviously the author did not consult the OED (see #8) which does list it as a chiefly BE variant. Strange, that a self-proclaimed linguist does not check or mention the OED, or Merriam-Webster (see below) for that matter. It looks like a classic case of cherry-picking of evidence. In fact, the author cites no reliable English dictionaries and does not bother to check any of the well-known corpora available of the English language. Instead she relies on google(?) search results. That approach is fraught. The assumption that certain domain endings mean that the sites in that domain are authored by native speakers of a certain language is flawed. There is no way to tell what the native language is of a certain site by its URL. English Wikipedia entries are often authored by several people from all over the globe, each having a different native language, sometimes none of which is English. Anyone speaking any language in the world can have any domain ending they want if they pay a hosting fee. There are no language requirements whatsoever for a .com, .uk, .edu domain and many of those domain endings, especially .com, are highly coveted because they get more traffic, or at least that is the perception. English is the lingua franca of the world, for better or for worse.

By typing in keywords for any opinion you choose you can always find websites (often in the form of blogs) that agree with that opinion. It doesn't really mean anything without knowing something about the source and the author, that is, doing some kind of source analysis.

Finally, here is another quote from the site in #10:

I suspect that the 'shun' meaning is less common on academic sites than on general sites, which include lots of places where people can be relatively free about declaring whom they are shunning--so I believe this might be a truer reflection of the relative Britishness of be nothing to do with.

Everyone is of course entitled to their own opinion, but that seems to me like highly dubious reasoning.

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Definition of be to do with idiom

chiefly British

1 : to relate to (something) : to be about (something) The problem is to do with fishing rights.

2 : to relate to or involve (someone) That's your problem: It's nothing to do with me!

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/be...