Screw Loose
Stalker "Gifts"
Do you have any experience with stalkers? I do. Well, sort of. When I was in university, there was someone leaving dead animals at my house. They had my name on it and were taped to the door of my house and placed around my car. It happened once or twice a week for over a month. Clearly, whoever was doing this had a screw loose. I made a post on Facebook that I was considering going to the police and the “gifts” stopped coming. I think I know who was responsible, but I never found out for sure. I am not sure how it made my roommates feel, but it was mostly annoying to me. I don’t know what to do with dead animals. I don’t have a pet cemetery in my backyard.
Meaning
Having a screw loose means that the person is a little crazy or weird. If something is missing a screw, it can be unstable and unpredictable. They have a social or mental difficulties OR they might just be eccentric.
Origin
There seems to be a consensus that screw loose comes from the 18th century and is related to machinery. If something was not working properly, it was deemed to have a loose screw somewhere. Sources claim that the idiom comes from the cotton industry in the 1780s. However, there wasn’t much information on the sites I normally use.
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Resources:
https://www.weirdfacts.com/en/origin-of-phrases/origin-of-phrases-h/3728-having-a-screw-loose
https://idiomland.tumblr.com/post/115382000175/have-a-screw-loose-means-to-be-silly-or.
http://www.english-for-students.com/Screw-Loose.html