A biweekly feature about idioms.
Things don’t always work out well. Sometimes you screw up. Admit defeat, accept blame, and tell the powers that be you tried your hardest, but everything ended up “back-assward.” That way it’s clear to everyone involved things are wrong, incomplete, disorganized, and not as expected.
E.g. I think the Swedes must be going through some sort of collective mid-life crisis. These back-assward assembly instructions are impossible.
E.g. I was worried when the car showed up from Japan with the steering wheel and gearbox all back-assward, but once we’re in Cyprus it’ll fit right in.
E.g. “I give up. This whole project is back-assword,” roared Benjamin Franklin. “Man was clearly not meant to reverse engineer this so-called ‘Big Mac’ sandwich.”
The expression is a play on “ass-backward,” which means the same thing. If you want to get pedantic “back-assward” is a Spoonerism of “ass-backward.” There’s an ass-less variant, “bass-ackward,” for meek chaps.