A good shellacking

[Melbourne12]

President Obama recently described his party's poor showing in the elections as "a shellacking". This seems to have caused surprise amongst political commentators, none of whom had encountered the expression.

I've been doing a straw poll amongst friends and family. Of those I asked, only myself and my wife knew the slang sense of "a sound drubbing", although neither of us had used it or even heard it used for years.

If I may, I'd like to extend the same poll across A4A, which is a pretty good demographic.

And I'd also be interested if anyone knows the derivation. Since I had my dictionaries to hand, I looked it up. The OED has shellac, of course, but not the slang meaning. Even Partridge doesn't mention it. Collins has it, but doesn't do derivations, and merely lists it as US and Canadian slang. Similarly Chambers.

I'd assumed that it came from French polishing, which requires a determined and repeated application. A craftsman friend suggested that since shellac flakes are dissolved in alcohol by a prolonged and vigorous shaking, that might be the derivation. Any other ideas?

[Melbourne12]

[BarriedaleNick]

An intersting question - I think there was something on the Today prog about this...
Which eventually lead me to this...via the economist..

http://david-crystal.blogspot.com/2010/11/on-shellacking.html