pound sand

• pound dirt, pound salt, pound sand into a rathole

In the 19th century, it appears to have been used as a mild insult, as the act of pounding sand is considered to be a menial task which is so simple that anyone could do it. Someone who didn't know how to pound sand (perhaps into a rat hole) was not very smart, but also one which causes no fruition, therefore suggesting those who perform it are somehow hopelessly mentally impaired.

By the 21st century, most users of this phrase do not know enough to pound sand into a rat hole, and use the phrase to indicate a useless activity.

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pound sand (third-person singular simple present pounds sand, present participle pounding sand, simple past and past participle pounded sand)

1. (idiomatic) To engage in a simple useful activity, which anyone would know how to perform, other than those who are incapable of any simple activity
   • 1871 January, Everett Chamberlain, “My Christmas at Salt Lake”, in The Lakeside Monthly:

     "Bishop McKillup lives there. He's got only three wives, and they three all put together don’t know enough to pound sand with a mallet, with a receipt on the handle."
     For which striking symbol of imbecility I should have given Jake a good deal of credit, if I had not heard him using it several times before as a regular stock expression

2. (idiomatic) To engage in a futile activity.
   • 2010, Eric Blehm, The Only Thing Worth Dying For: How Eleven Green Berets Forged a New Afghanistan, HarperCollins, published 2010, →ISBN, page 44:

     […] Without men on the ground, we'll be pounding sand."

   • 2011, Donald Rumsfeld, Known and Unknown: A Memoir:

     He told Shelton we needed to "unleash holy hell." “We're not just going to pound sand,” he added.

3. (idiomatic, dismissal) To go away; get lost; go to hell.

   All you do is complain. Why don't you go pound sand up your ass and stop bothering the line staff.

   • 2003 March 15, Christopher Koch, “Showdown at the 6.0 Corral”, in CIO:

     "The price to us was going to be $3 million, and we had four months to pay before the Licensing 6.0 deadline. We told Microsoft to go pound sand."

• For more quotations using this term, see Citations:pound sand.

• (do something futile): get blood from a stone, piss up a rope
• (go away): get lost, go fly a kite, take a hike, fuck off

• enough sense to pound sand into a rathole