"as lousy as a coot"

[Jonathan Lighter]

So the etymology may not be very exotic after all.

Slightly earlier exx. of  "coot," also British:

1915 (Apr. 22) in  Harold Chapin _Soldier and Dramatist: Being the Letters
of...[an] American Citizen who Died for England at Loos on September 26,
1915_ (London: John Lane, 1917) 141: Two of the four Corporals have
celebrated the occasion by "going cooty," otherwise declaring possession of
one or more lice and being quarantined in the scaby ward.   (Sept. 17) Ibid.
270: Willet...grappling with an enormous "coot" (otherwise louse).

In April, 1915, Chapin was a member of the 6th Field Ambulance of the Royal
Army Medical Corps stationed near Givenchy.

"Coot" was also a frequent synonym in the U.S. Army. I'd hastily assumed it
was short for "cootie," but perhaps the opposite was originally true.

JL



On Thu, Jul 9, 2009 at 8:06 AM, Stephen Goranson <goranson at duke.edu> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Stephen Goranson <goranson at DUKE.EDU>
> Subject:      "as lousy as a coot"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Google Books gives 22 hits for "as lousy as a coot" up to "1916."
>
> Stephen Goranson
> http://www.duke.edu/~goranson
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org