A: Did you ask the boss for that position?

    B: No, I didn’t. Mary queered my pitch by asking for promotion before I did.

    Note: “Queer” has been used as a verb meaning “to spoil” since the early 19th century. Traveling showmen and market hawkers called the place they set out their stalls a “pitch.” The phrase was frequently used in those circles, and later amongst traveling theater groups, as meaning “distract the paying audience from the show.” Directing the public away from another trader’s business and towards one’s own was an important part of street trading. The phrase originally means to “interfere with or spoil the business of a tradesman or showman.” It has the more general meaning of “destroying or ruining a plan.”