Dog-tired, gone to the dogs, dog-eat-dog… given how long we have lived side-by-side with canines, with evidence indicating that they may have become domesticated more than 15,000 years ago, it is no wonder that our language is full of references to these beloved animals.
Dogs once provided so much labour that their exertion is where the phrase ‘dog tired’ comes from. (Above) Bandit and Chilli from the TV series Bluey.
Many of my favourite such phrases are reminders of how this relationship has evolved. It wasn’t always one of pampered indolence, for instance.
That’s where we get “a dog’s life”, in fact. The earliest recorded use of this term dates to the 16th century, a time when these animals were still used for activities ranging from heavy-duty transport to security (particularly to guard valuable livestock) and arduous chases during hunts. (This is also where we get the term “dog tired”.)
It says something about our emotional connection with these animals that, even then, the sense that they were being put upon and were suffering seeped into our language; a language that has made little room for such sentiment when it comes to the many other animals we use, eat, exploit or leave homeless.
“Dog day”, meanwhile, comes to us via Ancient Rome. The term still indicates a period of great heat (hence the title of that 1975 Al Pacino bank-heist classic, Dog Day Afternoon). Ancient Romans used the term “dog days” for the five or six hottest weeks of the summer. They believed that Sirius the Dog Star rose with the sun, at this time of year, adding to the intensity of the heat.
“To see a man about a dog” has an interesting origin tale too. It has been traced to the 1860s, when it was used in a play. A man is eager to slip away from an uncomfortable conversation and says he has to see a man about a dog, likely indicating that he had to rush to the tracks to bet on the greyhound races.
By the Prohibition-era 1920s, the phrase was being used as a euphemism for buying alcohol from a bootlegger. It is still used to indicate an activity one would rather not name; at the moment, it is usually a euphemism for needing a restroom. It can also indicate that one can’t be bothered to make up an excuse for one’s departure and intends to dash off regardless.
“To go to the dogs” also has a link with racing. Attending greyhound races was considered an activity so amoral, and so certain to damage one’s reputation and finances, that “going to the dogs” became a metaphor for a rapid decline in looks, health and status.
“Dog eat dog”, meanwhile, refers to a situation of such cutthroat competition that people would be willing to harm one other, almost cannibalise one another, in order to succeed. Why dogs, given that they don’t eat each other, and there are actually animals that do?
Well, the phrase started out meaning something very different. It has its roots in Ancient Rome, and the Latin phrase “Canis caninam non est”. Which wasn’t exactly a compliment either. That proverb meant that someone who was unscrupulous was unlikely to harm other unscrupulous people (and was in fact more likely to collude with them). It was shortened over time, and eventually came to acquire its new meaning.
Which says more about how our world has changed, I think, than it does about the canines we live among.
(Adam Jacot de Boinod is the author of The Meaning of Tingo. The views expressed are personal)
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