Aces High Bulletin Board

General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: hawker238 on June 22, 2004, 07:48:30 PM

Title: Simple Question
Post by: hawker238 on June 22, 2004, 07:48:30 PM
Where did the saying "screwed the pooch" come from?
Title: Simple Question
Post by: Martlet on June 22, 2004, 08:12:27 PM
Canada
Title: Simple Question
Post by: Ripper29 on June 22, 2004, 08:24:51 PM
Close but not quite...

"Screwed the pooch," meaning "made a terrible mistake," is a
cleaned-up paraphrase that author Tom Wolfe popularized. Wolfe's book
"The Right Stuff," which dealt with the early years of America's
manned space program, used the phrase "screwed the pooch" in
describing a calamitous error made by Mercury Astronaut Gus Grissom:

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=350436:)
Title: Simple Question
Post by: Ozark on June 22, 2004, 08:27:17 PM
Quote
Originally posted by Ripper29
Close but not quite...

"Screwed the pooch," meaning "made a terrible mistake," is a
cleaned-up paraphrase that author Tom Wolfe popularized. Wolfe's book
"The Right Stuff," which dealt with the early years of America's
manned space program, used the phrase "screwed the pooch" in
describing a calamitous error made by Mercury Astronaut Gus Grissom:

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=350436:)



Cool!

TY Ripper
Title: Simple Question
Post by: Ozark on June 22, 2004, 08:30:40 PM
Still have a hard time believing it.

I’m just a simple hillbilly, please show me again.

:confused:
Title: Simple Question
Post by: midnight Target on June 22, 2004, 11:02:00 PM
Sorry, but "screwed the pooch" certainly pre-dates "The Right Stuff".
Title: Simple Question
Post by: Hyrax81st on June 22, 2004, 11:08:47 PM
"Screwed the pooch" is the sanitized version (for print and movies) of what they really said... which was

"F _ _ _ ed the dog"...

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=350436

Originally meant military men goofing off on the job, rather than to catastrophic errors:

Anyone who has ever been in the military has spent an inordinate
amount of time in a 'stand-by' formation waiting for someone to get the orders to start some activity. Many man-hours were spent in an activity that was commonly known as 'Effing the dog.' [Note: They didn't really say, 'Effing,' but I'm sure you can figure it out.] Back home in civilian life this was cleaned up to the slightly more acceptable 'screwing the pooch."
Title: Simple Question
Post by: Nash on June 22, 2004, 11:11:57 PM
I thought "****ing the dog" means slackin' off.
Title: Simple Question
Post by: Octavius on June 22, 2004, 11:31:25 PM
Quote
Originally posted by Nash
I thought "****ing the dog" means slackin' off.


No, thats just what Funked considers a "damn fun time." :D