"screw the pooch"

[Jonathan Lighter]

Presumably STP once did mean the same as FTD, if only for a few unrecorded
minutes.

JL




On Wed, Dec 18, 2013 at 3:23 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: "screw the pooch"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Wed, Dec 18, 2013 at 1:38 PM, Douglas G. Wilson <douglas at nb.net>
> wrote:
> >
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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:
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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?
> >> --
> >>
> >> 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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> >
> >
> > --
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> truth."
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