"screw the pooch"

[Mullins, Bill CIV (US)]

The 2004 film "Spartan", written by David Mamet, has a scene where Val Kilmer is instructing a rookie agent to blend in to a city street.  I don't remember the exact line, but at one point they are walking down a street doing surveillance, and Kilmer tells the rookie to be nonchalant.  "You're a guy walking the dog."  The sentence is not literal, there are no dogs.  But it's not clear if it is meant "pretend you are walking a dog", or if it is figurative -- "you are just bumming around."  But I think the loafing sense below is relevant.





On Wed, Dec 18, 2013 at 6:39 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"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> "Seducing the canine" = "loafing" can be found at G-books: in a 2013
> book it is apparently quoted from a 1952 book, and there are synonymous
> "seducing the dog", "catching the dog", "dogging it".
>
> -- Doug Wilson
>
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