"screw the pooch"

[Laurence Horn]

On Dec 18, 2013, at 2:16 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:

> 1938 (Feb. 19) in Alvah Bessie _Spanish Civil War Notebooks_ (Lexington:
> U.P. of Ky., 2002) 9: _Goldbrick_-- malingerer      _fuck the dog_ -  to
> malinger.
>
> JL

So are we converging on a supposition that pooch-screwing in its variants has undergone a reanalysis from 'fuck off' to 'fuck up'?  Or is this a consistent distinction between "fuck the dog" and "screw the pooch"? Either way, that's interesting.

LH
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> On Wed, Dec 18, 2013 at 1:38 PM, Douglas G. Wilson <douglas at nb.net> wrote:
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>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       "Douglas G. Wilson" <douglas at NB.NET>
>> Subject:      Re: "screw the pooch"
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> On 12/17/2013 4:45 PM, Ben Zimmer wrote:
>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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>>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>> Poster:       Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at GMAIL.COM>
>>> Subject:      "screw the pooch"
>>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>> Wiktionary says this of "screw the pooch":
>>>
>>> ....
>>>
>>> Anyone have firmer evidence about the origins of the phrase?
>> --
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>> No real evidence, just an imperfect memory. Around 1967-70, I heard
>> routinely "f*ck the dog", and I also heard a variety of frivolous
>> equivalents. The only one I remember for sure is the peculiar
>> "intercourse the canine". Other ones surely had "screw" and "mutt" but I
>> can't remember exactly which combinations I heard. I don't remember
>> whether "screw the pooch" was among these or not, but even if it wasn't
>> I suppose it likely occurred on the same basis somewhere, then or
>> earlier. I don't know which of these phrases had how much currency. All
>> of them however meant (as I understood them) "goof off" or "do nothing"
>> rather than "make a blunder" (i.e., = "f*ck off" rather than "f*ck up",
>> some might say).
>>
>> When I heard "screw the pooch" clearly meaning "make a big blunder" or
>> so, much later, perhaps 1990 or so, I remember I was surprised by the
>> meaning but not by the words employed, so I suppose I had heard "screw
>> the pooch" = "goof off" at some point.
>>
>> -- Doug Wilson
>>
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> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
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