getting clobbered/getting skunked

[Douglas G. Wilson]

>"Getting skunked" means your team doesn't score at
>all, to which my own understanding and the ADS-L archives
>attest. However, on another email list a colleague asserted
>that "getting clobbered" meant the same thing.
>
>I protested that "getting clobbered" merely meant that the
>score was lopsided, regardless of whether the losing team
>scored 0 or not, and that "getting skunked" was reserved
>for scores where the losing team got 0, but now I wonder
>if I'm not operating under a Canadian regionalism? Would
>anyone say a team "got skunked" if the score were, say,
>18-2?

I've encountered "skunk" = "shut out" (zero score on one side) and also
"skunk" = "clobber" (very lopsided score or so). My handy dictionaries seem
to accept both ... the Web M-W 10th Collegiate most strongly or explicitly,
I guess:

Main Entry: 2skunk
Function: transitive verb
Date: 1843
1 a : DEFEAT b : to shut out in a game
2 : to fail to pay; also : CHEAT

-- Doug Wilson