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The slang phrase I wouldn’t piss on (a person) if (that person) were on fire, and its variants, mean: I feel intense dislike or contempt for (a person).
This phrase occurs, for example, in the following from an interview of the U.S. actress Shirley MacLaine (born 1934), by Robert Chalmers, published in The Sunday Tribune (Dublin, County Dublin, Ireland) of Sunday 20th April 2003 [Art Life: page 1, column 1]:
On my knee, there’s a pile of newspaper cuttings about the actress. […] Certain worrying adjectives keep coming into focus: words like “fearsome”, “formidable” and “intimidating”. One writer quotes “one of Hollywood’s nicer leading men” as saying that MacLaine is “a horrible person. If she was on fire,” the nicer man says, “I wouldn’t piss her out.”
These are, in chronological order, the earliest occurrences of the phrase I wouldn’t piss on (a person) if (that person) were on fire and variants that I have found:
1-: From Quatrefoil (Boston (Massachusetts): Alyson Publications, Inc., 1982), a novel by the U.S. author and gay-rights activist James Fugaté (1922-1995)) [Part 2, chapter 18, page 205]—this novel was first published, under the pen name of ‘James Barr’, as: Quatrefoil. A Modern Novel (New York: Greenberg, 1950):
“Get this straight: everyone who tries to give you a hand isn’t out to rook you. Frankly I think you deserve everything that’s coming to you, but Tim Danelaw doesn’t, and I like him as much as I hate your kind! In fact, my little friend, so far as you and I are concerned, I wouldn’t piss on you if you were afire!”
2-: From Riding relish, by Michael Parkin, published in The Guardian (Manchester, Lancashire, England) of Friday 25th June 1971 [page 11, column 8]—here, the phrase is used of miserliness:
True Yorkshire humour delights in death, disaster, and discomfiture and is at its most savage in personal judgments. Thus: A man who is mean “wouldn’t part with the reek of his own muck,” or “wouldn’t pee on you if you were on fire.”
3-: From Capone (1975), a U.S. crime film starring Ben Gazzara (1930-2012) as the U.S. gangster Al Capone (1899-1947)—source: Clip.Cafe:
“Give you five grand? I wouldn’t piss up your ass if you was on fire.”
4-: From Carry on into Europe!, by Oliver Pritchett, published in the Evening Standard (London, England) of Friday 28th February 1975 [page 13, column 6]:
—Context: The author was at Dover, a seaport in Kent, southeastern England, where he spoke to lorry drivers waiting to cross the English Channel or returning from France; Eddie Dyson was a British lorry driver working for a Dutch transport firm:
Life in Europe for the drivers is full of complicated annoyances, mystifying rules and meaningless hold-ups. The worst side of the Common Market. Even a good European like Eddie Dyson cannot contain his irritated national prejudices. “I wouldn’t piss on a Frenchman if he was on fire,” he said. “Now the Germans are different. I’d do anything for a Kraut.”
5-: From Diary of a battered housewife, published in The Miami News (Miami, Florida, USA) of Tuesday 3rd January 1984 [page 3B, column 2]:
Billy went out and came home drunk. I was pretending I was asleep. All at once he sat straight up in bed, ripped the covers off me and started hitting me. He put one fist on my forehead and pounded my chest. “You wouldn’t pee on a dog if it was on fire!” he screamed. The word fire must have given him an idea, because then he said he was going to burn the apartment down.
6-: From the concluding sentence of a review of Tomboy (1985), a U.S. teen comedy film starring Betsy Russell (born 1963)—review by Michael Dare, published in L.A. Weekly (Los Angeles, California, USA) of Thursday 14th March 1985 [page 84, column 5]:
If the makers of this film were on fire, I wouldn’t piss on them.
7-: From Matewan (1987), a U.S. drama film written and directed by John Sayles (born 1950)—source: Clip.Cafe:
I wouldn’t pee on him if his heart was on fire.
8-: From The Sydney Morning Herald (Sydney, New South Wales, Australia) of Thursday 5th March 1987 [page unnumbered, column 1]:
Frank talk
The scene is Singleton on Tuesday afternoon. John Howard 1 is on the country beat trying to beef up the Liberal Party’s popularity and decides to take a look in at the Pub House Hotel. Frank Gore, a wiry, 40-year-old construction worker, is having a beer with his mates. Howard walks in and Gore starts on a diatribe which lasts about 10 minutes. Much shortened, the conversation goes something like this.
Gore: (in a loud voice) (Expletive) hell, it’s Howard. Have a go at these (expletive). If you expect us to vote for you, you’ve got to do a better job mate. I wouldn’t piss on Bob Hawke 2, he’s the biggest (expletive) slime in Australia. And that’s not pissing in your pocket 3 mate.
1 John Howard (born 1939) was then the Leader of the Liberal Party of Australia.
2 Bob Hawke (1929-2019) was then the Prime Minister of Australia and the Leader of the Labor Party.
3 Cf. ‘to piss in someone’s pocket’: meaning and origin.
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