10 Years of knowing Gretchen and I’m still learning all the southern expressions. Today she busted out this on me. It’s not nearly as frustrating as “put it up” when “up” could mean down depending on the object.
Yes, out of pocket has come to mean ‘unreachable, absent, unavailable’. Lurking on the Internet discussion group “alt.usage.english,” I’m convinced that this “newer” meaning is at least 25 years old, originally not too common, but now increasingly used over a wide area. In fact the Dictionary of American Regional English promises out of pocket as a “coming attraction” in the forthcoming Volume IV. Their draft entry is labeled “Chiefly South and South Midland,” a regional distribution that includes southern states (such as Georgia and Alabama), and states just above this region (such as Tennessee and Kentucky).
Source: The Mavens’ Word of the Day