Discussion Forum—A Way with Words, a fun radio show and podcast about language

The trial of the Chicago 7 brought the notion of cops as pigs to the forefront, but I'm not sure when it first got traction.  Calling an individual a pig surely goes back centuries, but I'm thinking that identifying p0olice officers in genberal a a group may have started with the Black Panthers. 

Huey Newton founded the Black panther Party For Self Defense in 1966, with the idea that "Black Lives Matter", but without everybody and his brother carrying around video-camera cell phones, they didn't get any traction.

This inquiry came about as I explored "screw the pooch", which was popularized by Tom Wolfe's "The Right Stuff", according to Google, but that came out in 1979.  AA News used "screwed the pooch' in 1975, Michael Hinkemeyer in 1978.  It apparently was "fucked the dog" originally.  A 1968 book, "Sailors, Subs and Senoritas" said

The Periwinkle has attained local notoriety for lagging behind (or "fucking the dog" in one tar's expressive metaphor), and she was again trailing yesterday at the time of the trouble. I am told at least a dozen "cans" of depth charges were ...

If you think of a submarine as shaped like a weiner, and sub following another closely would sorta be fucking the dog.

But if one thinks of bestial phrases, pig-fucker comes to mind.  From "Better Call Saul" to prime minister Cameron, it seems to be in vogue.  According to Ngram Viewer, the version pig-fucking sprang our of nowhere in 1965.  Hmmm. If bigots user nigger-lover as an insult, wouldn't pig-fucker be the corresponding insult?  (Is this a contrapositive?)

But again, we come up with the limitations of Ngram Viewer.  What didn't make it into print didn't get archived. 

This is one of the oldest and most effective tricks in politics.  Every hack in the business has used it in times of trouble, and it has even been elevated to the level of political mythology in a story about one of Lyndon Johnson’s early campaigns in Texas.  The race was close and Johnson was getting worried.  Finally he told his campaign manager to start a massive rumor campaign about his opponent’s life-long habit of enjoying carnal knowledge of his own barnyard sows.

“Christ, we can’t get a way calling him a pig-fucker,” the campaign manager protested.  “Nobody’s going to believe a thing like that.”

“I know,” Johnson replied.  “But let’s make the sonofabitch deny it.”

- Apparently from Dr Hunter S Thompson's Fear and Loathing On the Campaign Trail (I didn't fact-check the origin)