Book of Daze: Screw the Pooch Day

“Screw the pooch” began as pilot slang for royally messing up–a phrase made famous by Tom Wolfe in The Right Stuff (1979). It describes a mistake so spectacularly bad that recovery is impossible. Unfortunately, the expression itself has earned side-eye from the canine community, which insists it is long overdue for retirement because …

1. In real life, everyone already knows who the dog is.
2. People have only just adjusted to inter-species communication on social media.
3. Linguists agree the phrase is, technically speaking, bottom-backward.
4. Cats got naming rights first, so dogs ended up with the short leash.
5. Pooch sounds cute but translates roughly as “lap-dog loser” in Doggish.
6. “Man’s best friend” never implied benefits.
7. The board-game version, Screw the Pooch, was banned after repeated tail injuries.
8. Once you start saying it, you drift toward worse idioms–like “let sleeping dogs lie” or “kick the bucket list.”
9. If “pooch service” becomes a thing, imagine the airport paperwork.
10. Just because dogs sniff our business does not mean they want to manage it.

Next: Kelly Clarkson: Why Lesbians Prefer Rescue Dogs

Editor’s note: This entry celebrates the absurdity of English idioms. No animals–or reputations–were harmed in its creation.

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