Talk:screw the pooch

Anybody know where this idiom comes from? Why "screw the pooch"? --63.25.225.157 18:20, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm guessing it's a by product of exaggerated mishaps while on liberty. For example, if a sailor was found passed out and returned to the ship, the story and gossip get progressively jucier every time it gets told. Soon he was found naked (whether he was or not, and after a few more times, he was found screwing a pooch).

this article doesn't show up in search
The chain of links that gets you here is weird. I searched for the exact phrase "screw the pooch". No result; instead, I was redirected to the Family Guy episode entitled "Screwed the Pooch". From there, there is a redirect to the term "screw the pooch". I have no idea how to fix this, but hopefully someone does! 24.62.163.33 12:40, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
 * That is most likely because you startet up at Wikipedia and ended up at Wiktionary, which is two different wikis. It's just that Wikipedia sometimes link to us and vice versa. --Eivind (t) 12:44, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Original term?
What is the original, "more vulgar" term, exactly? This is a wiktionary, right? Not a sensor?


 * Also not a censor with a C?


 * BTW, the entry includes the original expression.


 * DocRushing (talk) 00:16, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Archived feedback
Hi Guys, this etymology seems to contradict itself.

The term was first documented in the early "Mercury" days of the US space program. It came there from a Yale graduate named John Rawlings who helped design the astronauts' space suits. The phrase is actually derived from an earlier, more vulgar and direct term which was slang for doing something very much the wrong way, as in "you are fucking the dog!" At Yale a friend of Rawlings', the radio DJ Jack May (a.k.a. "Candied Yam Jackson") amended this term to "screwing the pooch" which was simultaneously less vulgar and more pleasing to the ear.

The second sentence says John Rawlings coined the term and the last sentence says it was his friend DJ Jack May.

Thanks for all your good work!

Brenden