Reply #18: Or maybe not -- here's a different story

[starroute]

Searching under the alternate form, "go pound sand," turned up this:

http://www.wordwizard.com/clubhouse/founddiscuss.asp?Num=2897

David McCullough's Truman reports that on 12 October 1948 Truman commented to advisor Clark Clifford regarding a Newsweek poll of fifty reporters that gave Truman no chance to win the election: "I know every one of these fifty fellows. There isn't one of them has enough sense to pound sand in a rat hole." This certainly is a possible origin. While it is unlikely that Truman coined the phrase himself, it seems likely that it is an aphorism that he knew and used. Filling rat holes with sand is menial work, and telling someone to pound sand down a hole would be like telling them to go fly a kite.

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The origin of the expression go pound sand is from a longer expression, not to know (have enough sense to) pound sand down a rathole. Filling rat holes with sand is menial work, and telling someone to pound sand down a hole is like telling them to go fly a kite. The expression dates to at least 1912 and is common in the midwestern United States.