"Crabs and ice water"

[Thomas Wolf]

I have recently come across the expression "crabs and ice water".
I first encountered it on the "Word Detective" page (column from
Nov. 17), however, the origin and precise meaning of this phrase
were not explained there.

I got curious and searched myself. Here are the meager results:

1. <http://www.webcom.com/mars/ceuforum/Read/454.html>
   "everything else is blue skies, crabs and ice water".
   From Massachusetts.

2. <http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/a/r/t/Edward-P-
Arthur/WEBSITE-0001/UHP-0007.html>
   "...he had hard crabs and ice water; he probably had a heart
condition".
   From Baltimore, Maryland.

3. <http://www.s-t.com/daily/07-00/07-18-00/a09lo033.htm>
   "Crabs in ice water, that's all I ever get".
   From Massachusetts.

4.
<http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=19970208051401.AAA02111%40ladder01
.news.aol.com>
   "(in response to "What's for supper?) Crabs and ice water".
   From Massachusetts.

5. <http://www.malcomlagauche.com/id2.html>
   "Crabs on ice water! If you don’t give me my money back, I’ll..."
   From Rhode Island/SE Massachusetts.

6. Print Source: John Irving, "Trying to save Peggy Sneed", Paperback
edition,
        Ballantine Books 1997; ISBN 0-345-40474-2

  p. 325:

    They skirted the truck traffic around Cleveland before Cleveland
    could get them in its foul grasp; they left behind them the feeling
    that the morning rush hour was angry it just missed them.
"Columbus,
    South", said a sign, but the driver snorted with scorn and sailed
    up the west ramp of the Ohio Turnpike.

    "Crabs in ice water to you, Columbus" he said.

    When you've come through anight of well-controlled tension and
you're
    underway in the morning with that feeling of a headstart advantage
on
    the rest of the world, even Ohio seems possible -- even Toledo
appears
    to be just a short sprint away.

    "Lunch in Toledo!" the driver announced, with...

 From New Hampshire/Massachusetts.

7. http://www.citypaper.com/2000-12-06/mail.html
   "...that guy probably never had hard crabs and Natty Boh."
   From Baltimore. (This one is to be taken literally; "Natty Boh"
   is "National Bohemian" beer. The whole phrase describes someone
   from out of town.)

That's all I found!

It seems to me that "crabs and/in ice water" can have two usages:
- as an expletive, as in #5 and #6
- "nothing", "[something] worthless" as in #1, #3, #4

#2 is the only one using "hard crabs", and uses the phrase differently.

I'd like to know more about that expression. Did I get the meaning
right?
Is this a regional saying (maybe from Massachusetts)? What are the
crabs:
crustaceans or crabapples? What's the origin? And what about the "hard
crabs" version?

--
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Thomas Wolf                   e-mail: t_wolf at angelfire.com