Query: "snail a column of dope"

[pskuhlman at JUNO.COM]

On Wed, 7 Nov 2001 20:37:02 EST "James A. Landau" <JJJRLandau at AOL.COM>
writes:
> Two guesses, neither especially plausible:
>
> 1.  McGraw may have been  a notoriously slow writer, and getting
> something
> out of him was like watching a snail.

        FWIW, my first association to the expression, "snailing a column
of dope" was that the column of text was an allusion to the trail a snail
(or slug) lays down and leaves behind on the surface of the soil as it
moves and that the snail was an allusion to the writer who slowly,
steadily and reliably "grinds out" the information.  Admittedly, this is
a gardener's association.  I didn't find this particularly plausible
either.

Patricia Kuhlman
Brooklyn, NY
pskuhlman at juno.com