Odd expression: "screw the pooch" = get things all fouled up

[Jonathan Lighter]

No evidence for "screw the pooch" has surfaced before "The Right Stuff."  It is now rather commonplace.

JL

"Rachel E. Shuttlesworth" <rshuttle at BAMA.UA.EDU> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: "Rachel E. Shuttlesworth"
Organization: University of Alabama Libraries
Subject: Re: Odd expression: "screw the pooch" = get things all fouled up
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My favorite example of this saying comes from the film "Stand By Me",
based on a short story by Stephen King. Teddy says, "Gordy screwed the
pooch", I think. I'm not sure if the expression is in the book, too, but
I seem to remember the events are supposed to be set in the late 50s or
early 60s. I also think it's in the film The Right Stuff based on Tom
Wolfe's book.
Rachel

Gerald Cohen wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Gerald Cohen
> Subject: Odd expression: "screw the pooch" = get things all fouled up
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Yesterday I watched an episode of "Law on Order" and was surprised to
> hear one of the detectives refer to someone who "screwed the pooch",
> i.e., got something all fouled up. I had never come across this
> expression before but find it on Google, e.g. "screwed the pooch on
> Iraqi intelligence."
>
> Jonathon Green's _Cassell's Dictionary of Slang_ dates it from the
> 1960's, with a few variants. There doesn't seem much doubt that the
> original reference was to bestiality, but how did this extend to "get
> things all fouled up"?
>
> Back to Google: http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/Kitty_20Pager
> where someone named "angel" wrote on Aug. 15, 2002:
> "A cursory trip through Goooooooogle reveals that it's slang used by
> test pilots in the '50's. To screw the pooch is to be in an aircraft
> when it crashes. More widely, it is to fail in a spectacular manner.
> As to etymology, dunno."
>
> I'll check a glossary of airforce lingo in a few days. Would
> anyone on ads-l have anything to add?
>
> Gerald Cohen

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Rachel E. Shuttlesworth
CLIR Post-Doctoral Fellow
University of Alabama Libraries
Box 870266, Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35487-0266
Office: 205.348.4655/ Fax:205.348.8833
rachel.e.shuttlesworth at ua.edu


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