… *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). However, I would add that *out of pocket* is also used in Hawaii (thank you!), on the West Coast, in the Midwest and West (especially in Texas), and even in the Northeast (such as in the financial districts of New York City). …
The phrase *out of pocket* also means ‘out of place; out of order’, and often describes unacceptable behavior or situations. This meaning has its roots in Black English of the 1940s, and refers to the pockets on a pool table. An example from a recent edition of *The Los Angeles Times*: “Any outsider who would attempt to engage in that conversation would be out of pocket.”