"as lousy as a coot"

[Jonathan Lighter]

What I think happened:

"lousy as a coot" > "cooty" (adj.) = "lousy, as is a coot" >  "coot"
(back-formation)and "cootie" (through mishearing and in other cases as a
diminutive).

JL

Thu, Jul 9, 2009 at 10:26 AM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "as lousy as a coot"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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:
>
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> > 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
> >
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