"can screw" = be gratifying

[Jonathan Lighter]

Thanks, Amy. You may be right.

I suspected it as a possibility, but that old sense of "screw" (usu. just
"depart")
sounded kind of archaic to me. Maybe I'm too hip....

JL
On Wed, Sep 9, 2009 at 8:26 AM, Amy West <medievalist at w-sts.com> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Amy West <medievalist at W-STS.COM>
> Subject:      "can screw" = be gratifying
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> No, I think that's the "go really fast" sense of "screw." I learned
> that sense last spring courtesy of a student's case study of fireman
> slang: they have "scoop and screw", which refers to putting someone
> onto a stretcher (scoop ) and getting them to a hospital fast (either
> ambulance or chopper).
>
> ---Amy West
>
> >Date:    Tue, 8 Sep 2009 15:41:52 -0400
> >From:    Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> >Subject: "can screw" = be gratifying
> >
> >2009 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DtvUqrlD21Gg:
> >
> >"Oh how I loved the Rambler Scrambler. In street trim, it was useless! It
> >would just smoke 'em up at any speed under 35mph.
> >But=EF=BB=BF the looks, the colors, the notoriety of being different. I
> rea=
> >lly miss
> >the AMC brand having owned an Ambassador Brougham. Man that car could
> >screw!"
> >
> >JL
>
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