"can screw" = be gratifying

[Amy West]

Me too: perhaps not archaic, but it sounded odd to me simply because
it's not in my vocabulary. But I thought it interesting to see that
sense/use maintained in that fireman slang phrase.

---Amy West

>Date:    Wed, 9 Sep 2009 08:40:20 -0400
>From:    Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
>Subject: Re: "can screw" = be gratifying
>
>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

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