QUICK AS A CAT

Since the times of ancient Egypt, where the cat was held sacred and killing one was punishable by death, cats have been an object of fascination and, for the most part, admiration. The speed with which they pounce on their prey, their haughty aloofness, their grace and agility -- all are recorded in everyday phrases in our speech.

Unlike their main domestic rival, the dog, cats seldom are the source of disparaging simile. Such terms as the agile cat burglar, the suave cool cat and provident fat cat by far outnumber the cowardly scaredy-cat or spiteful catty remark.

The word cat can be traced back to the Latin cattus, via the Old English catt and Middle English catte, but its ultimate origins have been lost.

Cat and Mouse

"She watches him as a cat would watch a mouse."

-- Jonathan Swift, Polite Conversation

Just as arrogant playfulness marks the cat's toying with a hapless captive, so those in authority are said to play cat-and-mouse games with a trapped victim. In 1913 the British Parliament passed the Cat and Mouse Bill (more officially, the Prisoners Temporary Discharge for Ill Health Bill) to counter the hunger strikes of imprisoned suffragettes who thus were becoming popular martyrs. The law provided that hunger strikers be released when their health began to be impaired, but upon recovery they would have to return to jail to complete their sentence.

Playing cat and mouse, in the sense of pursuit and evasion, is also used less formally, in a more playful sense. It is, in fact, the name of a children's game in which a designated "cat" chases a "mouse" in and out of a circle formed by the other children.

At least one authority believes that catnap, used since about 1820 to mean a short light sleep, originated from cat- and-mouse games. Supposedly a cat playing with a mouse it has caught will sometimes feign sleep, encouraging the mouse to run away so that the cat may pounce again.

A wide-awake cat is an inestimable boon to the household plagued by mice. Hence it is obvious that when the cat is absent the mice will have a free run. When the cat's away, the mice will play is a proverb in many languages, first appearing in this form in English in the 17th century. (Earlier variants date back to the Roman writer Plautus.) That the mice might want fair warning of the cat's return was noted by William Langland, who in Piers Ploughman (c. 1377) recounted Aesop's fable about the mice that wanted a bell placed around the cat's neck so as to hear it coming in time to escape. However, not one of the mice was brave enough to volunteer to bell the cat and thereby sacrifice its life for the common cause. "It is one thing to propose and another to execute," Aesop concluded. Ever since, to bell the cat has meant to take a chance and face danger for the good of the majority.

While cats are valued for hunting pests, they do not always discriminate among their prey, and the cat that goes after its owner's prized pet bird or goldfish may be in for a good scolding. To look like the cat that swallowed the canary has meant to look guilty but smug since at least 1871, and the term turns up in several American mystery stories of the 1930s and 1940s, including Dashiel Hammett's The Maltese Falcon.

Our neighbor's cat, harking back to its fiercer ancestors in the wild, has a passion for chipmunks, field mice, robins, and the like. She proudly deposits their corpses at her owner's doorstep, a common practice that gave rise, about 1920, to the expression look like something the cat dragged in, an accurate description of utter bedragglement.

Among the oldest sayings about cats is A cat may look at a king, meaning an ordinary person has certain rights even in the presence of a superior power or authority. It comes from the German Darf doch die Katze den Kaiser ansehen, which supposedly alludes to a visit of the Emperor Maximilian I in 1517 to the shop of a printmaker whose cat stared at the emperor throughout the visit. However, it may have appeared in print even earlier, and there is a French equivalent, un chien regarde bien un évêque ("A dog may look at a bishop"). By 1546 it appeared in English in John Heywood's proverb collection, and many times thereafter, but it is heard less often today.

Cats in Chorus

"Let Hercules himself do what he may,

The cat will mew and dog will have his day."

-- William Shakespeare, Hamlet

Cats mew in distress, purr in contentment, hiss in anger, and howl or screech in rutting time. The catbird is so named because one of its calls sounds like a cat's mew (see also CATBIRD SEAT). A cats' concert, usually a nocturnal event, is a discordant din, and caterwauling, from Middle English and Middle Dutch words meaning "tomcat" and "wailing," came by the 14th century to mean the ugliest of feline noises. Similarly, catcall denotes whistles, screeches, and other rude sounds of displeasure made at performers by dissatisfied audiences; this term dates from about 1700.

All the more surprising, then, that the cat's meow, not necessarily a pleasing sound even to the ardent cat lover, became a slang term for utter excellence (along with the equally unlikely cat's pajamas and cat's whiskers). It seems to have originated in American girls' schools during the late 19th century and became very popular during the roaring twenties, when Clara Bow, the fabled "It girl," was widely regarded as "the cat's meow.

Cat's Tails

"What a monstrous tail our cat has."

-- Henry Carey (1687-1743), The Dragon of Wantley

The catkin, from words meaning "little cat," is the inflorescence of the pussy willow, itself named for its resemblance to a cat's freely swinging tail. The same is true for the tall, reedlike marsh plants with furry spikes that have been known as cattails since Chaucer's day.

The cat-o'-nine tails, named for the same resemblance but having nothing soft or fuzzy about it, is a whip with nine lashes fastened to a handle. It was once widely used to punish offenders in the British armed services; it was not formally abolished as a punishment until 1948. Sometimes called simply the cat, it began as a cat-of-three-tails, but during the 17th century it acquired six more, supposedly because a flogging by a "trinity of trinities" would be more effective.

The whip in turn may have given rise to the expression no room to swing a cat, used to describe very cramped quarters by Tobias Smollett (Humphry Clinker, 1771), Charles Dickens, and Mark Twain, among others. However, there are several other theories as to the origin of this term, all involving cruel pursuits. Some say that, cat being an old Scots word for "scoundrel," the term refers to a criminal swinging from the gallows. Others say it came from the sport of swinging a cat by its tail to serve as target practice for marksmen. And still others say it came from the practice of tying a cat inside a leather sack that was hung from a tree and used as an archery target -- a moving one, since the cat naturally would thrash about. To hit such a target the archer must watch carefully to see which way the cat jumps, a phrase still used for observing events closely in order to predict their final outcome. "I would like to be there," wrote Sir Walter Scott in his Journal in 1826, "were it but to see how the cat jumps."

A Cat's Demise

"This fiber analysis is not going to work out... But there's more than one way to skin a cat."

-- Richard Preston, The Cobra Event (1997)

Why one should do so at all is problematical, but There's more than one way to skin a cat first appeared in print in John Ray's proverb collection of 1678, in slightly amplified form ("There's more than one way to skin a cat without tearing the hide"). It then meant, as it still does, that more than one solution or path of action is available. In the 19th century a similar phrase with the same meaning was There is more than one way of killing a cat besides choking him on cream, but it is the original version that has survived.

From far more recent times we have the stock-market term dead cat bounce, meaning a slight upturn in a security whose price had dropped sharply, which raises false hopes of a continued rise. The analogy of "bounce," which here signifies "temporary increase," to the behavior of a deceased pussy makes no more sense than the temporary price change itself. However, one stockbroker suggested it alludes to throwing a dead cat from a tall building, where it might bounce when it landed but would not come back to life.

As for how the animal came to die in the first place, one might speculate that curiosity killed the cat. This seemingly ancient adage was only first recorded in O. Henry's 1909 story Schools and Schools ("Curiosity can do more things than kill a cat"), and its exact present wording not until 1922 (in Eugene O'Neill's Diff'rent). It has just about replaced the earlier care killed the cat, dating from Shakespeare's time, care here meaning "worry."

And then we have the colloquial and controversial Southern expression, dead cat on a line, used in the sense of "Something's suspicious, things are not as they should be." The origin is disputed. Some say the "cat" here is actually a catfish, and the saying alludes to finding a dead catfish on a trotline (one with numerous hooks), showing the line's owner has not checked it daily, as he should. Others believe it alludes to the practice of drowning an unwanted litter of kittens, one of which would be pulled up on someone's fishing line. The true origin is unknown.

A Cat Has Nine Lives

"One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives."

-- Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson

Given the cruel treatment it sometimes suffers, it's just as well that a cat has nine lives, a reference to the fact that it often lands on its feet uninjured after a seemingly bad fall. The secret to this feat is the cat's ability to right itself while falling and spread out its limbs horizontally, like a flying squirrel. It thereby increases the wind resistance and decreases its velocity and force of impact, which is spread over its whole body by its spread position. An ancient Hindu scribe named Pilpay (or Bidpai) is credited as being the first to record this remarkable but clearly fictional characteristic about 300 B.C. By the time John Heywood assembled his collection of proverbs (1546), this quality was figuratively ascribed to women as well ("A woman hath nine lives like a cat").

Longevity notwithstanding, an octogenarian lady we know has regularly claimed, during her frequent bouts of imagined ill health, that she is weak as a cat, a saying dating back to at least 1840. 0. Henry's version -- "weak as a vegetarian cat" -- sounds more plausible, as does ErIe Stanley Gardner's "weak as a kitten." The word kitten, for a newborn or very young cat, has been around since the late 14th century. However, to have kittens, in the slang sense of becoming very upset, nervous, or angry, dates only from about 1900. The allusion is not very clear, since a cat in the throes of labor does not actually behave in this way.

Despite their attraction to the herb catnip, called catmint by the British, cats are carnivores and rely on meat and fish as staples of their diet. Hence a cat among the pigeons is sure to wreak havoc, and this term is sometimes transferred to a human being inciting a group to heated debate or even violent behavior.

Cat Anatomy

"The fog comes on little cat feet."

-- Carl Sandburg, The Fog (1916)

The cat's stealthy tread not only inspired Sandburg's best-known poem but gave rise to pussyfoot, originally meaning to tread softly and lack forcefulness and assertiveness. By the early 1900s it took on additional figurative significance, that is, to act cautiously and noncommittally, in the way that politicians may hedge on controversial issues before an election. By the 1930s a pussyfooter was a coward plain and simple, a close cousin of the scaredy-cat and fraidy-cat of children's schoolyard taunts.

The cat's stealthy tread and agility probably gave rise to the term cat burglar, who breaks in by climbing over roofs and through upper-story windows. And its fine sense of balance gave rise to catwalk, a narrow walkway high above some area to allow workers access in a construction site, over a theater's stage, outside a bridge's roadway, or the like.

A quite different portion of the cat's anatomy is alluded to in catgut, a resilient material used since the 16th century to string violins and other musical instruments. The origin of this usage is extremely puzzling, since the material is and always has been made from the dried intestines of sheep, never from cats. Word buffs can come up with fanciful reasons, and one has suggested that catgut is derived via kit, a tiny violin used by dancing masters in the 17th and 18th centuries. It was small enough to be carried in a pocket, and its strings may have been called "kit gut," which then became catgut.

A cat's eyes seem to glow in the dark, giving rise to the name cat's-eye for several semiprecious gemstones -- especially chrysoberyl, which is yellow or green -- that have a similar luster.

And finally we have cat's-paw, for a person who is easily duped. This expression comes from an ancient fable about a monkey who persuaded a cat to retrieve roasted chestnuts from a fire, thereby burning its paw. Some versions of this tale, told in numerous languages, use a dog, but it is the cat that has stuck in English.

Cats after Dark

"In the night all cats are grey."

-- Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote

Cats are nocturnal beasts, and their sexual pursuits and proclivities have not been overlooked. Tomcatting, from the word simply meaning "male cat," has come to mean pursuing sexual lust and promiscuity. The word cat itself has been slang for a female prostitute since at least 1400, and thus cat house came to mean a house of prostitution, particularly a cheap one (the term became current in the early 1900s but had been so used much longer).

The word puss, originally from Dutch and Low German and imitative of the spitting noise of a cat, became a call-name for cats in the 16th century and then, during the next hundred years, a slang word for girl or woman. About the same time the diminutive pussy became a slang word for vagina and is still so used. (The derivation of puss as slang for "face" is from the Gaelic pus and earlier buss, for "lip," whence also sourpuss, for a scowling expression, and by extension for a grouchy disposition.) In contrast, pussycat has no sexual connotations but is simply a colloquialism for a very amiable, likable person.

The 1920s gave us the cat's meow as a flattering superlative, and the jazz age gave us the equally admirable cool cat and hep cat. From about the same period comes the sobriquet fat cat, originally denoting a rich person who makes a sizable contribution to a political campaign fund, often in exchange for special privileges of one kind or another, and then extended to anyone who has great wealth and lives in lavish style.

There appears to be some linguistic ambivalence about the character and disposition of cats. No one admires the slavish imitator known as a copycat (dating from 1915 or so). A person given to malicious gossip and spiteful remarks has been termed catty since about 1885. An affectedly coy girl or woman is said to be kittenish, although this also can refer to the playfulness normal in young cats. But a hellcat is an out-and-out shrew. In the 16th century, however, a hellcat was a woman with evil magical powers, that is, a witch. This usage undoubtedly came from the medieval superstition that Satan often took the form of a black cat, in turn leading first to the notion that a black cat was the devil's familiar (slave or companion) and then that it was a witch's familiar -- a personal, always available demon. In the witchcraft trials of 16th-century England and 17th-century Massachusetts such terms were frequently mentioned, and the presence of a black cat was even cited as "evidence." It is this association that gave rise to the idea that a black cat signifies bad luck and such sayings as "Don't let a black cat cross your path." Although few of us still believe in witchcraft, this superstition has persisted to the present day.

The term kitty, another call-name for cat ("here, kitty"), also means a poker "pot" and later came to mean any pool or fund, but this latter sense has no feline connection; it comes from the medieval Dutch kitte or kit, meaning "jug" or "vessel."

Let the Cat out of the Bag

"I forgot, I was nigh letting the cat out of the bag again."

-- Maria Edgeworth, The Parent's Assistant (1796)

Before the era of supermarkets or even the corner grocery, many households relied on a weekly farmers' market for their supplies. Especially prized and costly was a suckling pig, purchased for holiday fare and other special occasions. Sellers in olden times were not always above skulduggery, any more than they are today, and occasionally a farmer would put a worthless cat instead of the expected pig into the purchaser's bag, which was called a "poke." The two animals weighed about the same amount, and unless buyers were cautious enough to check the contents, the substitution might not be discovered until they got home and let the cat out of the bag.

One of the earliest references to this practice dates from about 1350: "When one profereth ye pigge, opon the pogh." The same trick was reported in France, for in the 14th century John Wycliff translated the French saying, acheter chat en poche ("buy a cat in a sack"), which was still current in the time of Montaigne (chat en sac). On the other side of the globe, the Chinese had a similar saying about a cat in a bag. In sum, this practice was so common that letting the cat out of the bag, in one way or another, survived, and it still means to reveal something prematurely, or to give away a secret.

Cheshire Cat

"I didn't know that Cheshire cats always grinned; in fact, I didn't know that cats could grin."

-- Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

The origin of grin like a Cheshire cat, meaning to smile inscrutably, has never been satisfactorily determined. The saying was popular long before Carroll wrote Alice, in which the Cat slowly disappeared until all that was left of it was its grin. Most explanations involve the traditional cheese of the English county of Cheshire. One holds that the cheese, today sold in the shape of a wheel, was once so molded that it resembled a grinning cat's face; another claims the cheese was imprinted with a local nobleman's coat of arms bearing a lion so poorly drawn that it resembled a grinning cat. Or, suggests another, it has nothing to do with cats or cheese but is an abbreviation for a fierce forest ranger named Caterling who frightened poachers in his native Cheshire with his skilled swordsmanship and hideous grin.

Another proper name figures in fight like the cats of Kilkenny, meaning to fight virtually to the death. Among the earliest printed references to it is in a nursery rhyme of about 1700:

There were two cats at Kilkenny

Each thought there was one too many;

So they quarreled and they fit,

They scratched and they bit,

Till excepting their nails

And the tips of their tails,

Instead of two cats there weren't any.

One section of the town of Kilkenny, in Ireland, was called Irishtown and inhabited mainly by the Irish, while another, Englishtown, situated across a little stream, had mainly English inhabitants. Strife between the two, which nearly destroyed them both, appears to be the origin of the legend of the Kilkenny cats, who ate each other up.

As beloved by children as the Alice stories is the game of cat's cradle, in which two players take turns fashioning a loop of string into various intricate designs. It, however, has nothing to do with cats. The name is generally thought to be a corruption of cratch-cradle, cratch meaning "crèche" or "manger" -- especially the manger in which the infant Jesus was laid -- and to refer to the cradle-like designs that can be formed with the string. Eventually "cratch" dropped out of the language and the similar-sounding and more familiar word "cat's" was substituted.

Raining Cats and Dogs

"At last I went to Ireland, 'Twas raining cats and dogs: I found no music in the glens Nor purple in the bogs."

-- George Bernard Shaw (1931)

The British origin of this expression for a heavy downpour makes perfectly good sense, given that country's notorious reputation for rainfall. Two centuries before Shaw composed his concluding refrain to an Irish song, Jonathan Swift had written, "I know Sir John will go, though he was sure it would rain cats and dogs" (1738), using a term that was already a cliché. The expression's origin is cloudy. One writer says it comes from North European myth, where cats supposedly have great influence on weather and the dog is a symbol of wind; hence the cat denotes heavy rain and the dog strong wind gusts. Another suggests the analogy of a raging storm to the hubbub of a cat-and-dog fight. Still another says it is a corruption of the French catedupe, for the French describe a downpour as "raining like a waterfall." Perhaps a more literal meaning is the true source. In 17th-century Britain, after a cloudburst the gutters would overflow with a filthy torrent that included dead animals, along with sewage and other debris. Whatever the source, the phrase called up an image picturesque enough to persist and be passed down to the present.

A DOG'S LIFE

Dog may be man's best friend, but our language does not show the converse to be true. More often than not a term involving dogs is negative and/or demeaning. A person unlucky enough to be called a dog, from the Middle English dogge, is being described as unsuccessful, unattractive, and generally unlikable. Although this judgment occasionally is mitigated, as in lucky dog, meaning fortunate person, and gay dog, a man with an active social life, a dirty dog is mean, despicable, and in Victorian terms, a true cad or rotter. To be called a cur, from Old Norse and German terms for "growling" and now signifying a mean dog of unspecific parentage, is considerably worse, even without the commonly added modifier mangy (meaning literally "afflicted with mange" and figuratively "contemptible"). A similar allusion is evoked by He who lies down with dogs will rise with fleas, a sobriquet about the fruits of keeping bad company that was first recorded by John Florio in First Fruites (1578). And it shouldn't happen to a dog, an expression of commiseration for someone's misfortune, indicates something is too awful even for a lowly dog.

In mid-19th-century America a dog was an informer, one who betrays his associates, and to turn dog meant to become a snitch. This meaning persists in Australia, where a dogbox is a special security area in prisons set up to protect inmates who were police informers. In vulgar slang, dog has meant "penis" since about 1600, a usage preserved in the 20th-century beat the dog, meaning to masturbate.

To lead a dog's life, which may derive from the 17th- century proverb "It's a dog's life, hunger and ease," is to live miserably, to be harried, nagged, and never left in peace. Even Erasmus said, in 1542, that a dog's life is a miserable life.

If living like a dog is bad, to die like a dog is no better. "He lyved lyke a lyon and dyed lyke a dogge," observed John Rastell in 1529, and four centuries later Ernest Hemingway said that in modern war "you will die like a dog for no good reason (Notes on the Next War, 1935). However, even though the dog often has been a symbol of misery, not all the sayings about dogs are negative or pessimistic. The ancients pointed out, Better a live dog than a dead lion, a proverb with a Biblical antecedent (Ecclesiastes 9:4) that points out that there is hope for the living -- even a dog --but none for the dead. Similar thinking has given us Furthermore, Every dog will have his day, a proverb first recorded in Plutarch's Moralia (c. 95 A.D.), where it is put as "Even a dog gets his revenge." According to Erasmus, the saying alludes to the death of Euripides, the famed Greek playwright who in 405 B.C. was killed by a dogpack set upon him by a rival. Nevertheless, for most dogs it may well be a dog's age, or very long time, before their day comes. This phrase may rest on the mistaken belief that dogs are very long-lived. It dates from the 1830s.

Still other expressions use dog to indicate or intensify unpleasant conditions. Since the early 1800s, to be dogtired since the early 1800s has meant to be utterly weary, and sick as a dog means miserably sick, usually to one's stomach, a saying one authority traces to the Bible ("A dog returneth to his vomit," Proverbs 26:11). Some of that illness might be ascribed to a dog's breakfast, a 20th-century term now signifying a hastily prepared, random mixture of castoff foods. Since dogs don't normally consume a human-style breakfast, the expression presumably alludes to a dog picking at bones and other debris such as found in garbage cans.

Poets of scant skill write doggerel, mentioned by Chaucer in the 14th century as rym dogerel, and actors try out new shows in unimportant little dog town.

Going to the Dogs

"My granddad, viewing Earth's worn cogs, Said things were going to the dogs."

-- Author unknown (c. 1900)

According to Agis II, King of Sparta (c. 402 B.C.), who is described in Plutarch's Lives, gone to the dogs simply means that things are topsy-turvy. Only much later did this saying mean to come to a bad end. Robert Harris wrote, in 1619: "One is coloured, one is foxt, and a third is gone to the dogs" (The Drunkard's Cup). Eventually it came to signify being ruined. Thus, writing about the proposed British Reform Bill that would give further voting privileges to the working classes, Leslie Stephen reported that "an elderly Tory added that we are all going to the dogs in consequence of that."

Similarly, being in the doghouse signifies a state of disgrace, though usually more temporary in nature. The dog that misbehaves indoors is relegated to its outdoor kennel. In like manner Mr. Darling (of James Barrie's Peter Pan) lives in a dog kennel until his children return, in penance for his harsh treatment of the family dog, Nana. Although the saying today is associated mainly with wives who are angry with their husbands and figuratively "put" them in the doghouse, it was not always so. Charles Dickens's Mr. Harris, who was "dreadfully timid," went and stopped his ears in an empty dog-kennel while his wife was in labor with their first baby "and never took his hands away or come out once till he was showed the baby" (Martin Chuzzlewit, 1843).

My Aching Dogs

Eric Partridge, in his Dictionary of Catch Phrases, maintains that my dogs are barking, meaning "my feet are hurting badly," is an American expression that originated some time before World War II and was quickly adopted by the rest of the English-speaking world. The Oxford English Dictionary, on the other hand, holds that dogs for "feet" originated in rhyming slang -- dogs' meat rhyming with feet -- and quotes this usage by P G. Wodehouse in 1924. The latter origin seems more plausible, and chances are that the term started in Britain, crossed the Atlantic, was embellished with "barking," and returned to the old country. In America it is not heard much any more, "My feet are killing me" being more common (and certainly more direct).

Dog Days

"Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun."

-- Noel Coward, Mad Dogs and Englishmen

The ancient Romans called the hottest days of summer caniculares dies, or "dog days." They believed that the dog star Sirius, the brightest star in the heavens, located in the constellation Canis Major ("Big Dog," so named for its shape), added to the heat while it was in its ascendancy. To the ancient Egyptians this star's rising was a sign of the beginning of the annual Nile flood. Noel Coward's poem poked fun at Englishmen living in the tropics who persist in habits more suitable to the British climate and disdain the sensible local custom of a noonday siesta; he likened them to dogs that, according to superstition, are frequently driven crazy by the heat. Another way to beat the dog days is to indulge in a dog paddle, a term used since about 1900 for treading water to stay afloat or for a beginner's version of the crawl stroke.

In the heyday of imperialism the British were famous for their dogged insistence on keeping up standards in the colonies, clinging to formal dress for dinner even in the jungle and putting on the dog for visiting dignitaries. Originally meaning "ill-conditioned" and "ill-favored," the adjective dogged later (15th century) meant simply "canine," but by the 1700s it had come to mean pertinacious or persistent, just as a dog is in worrying a bone. The verb to dog carries the same meaning, that is, to follow closely and persistently, as a dog follows its master's footsteps or, in hunting, a quarry's tracks and scent. Putting on the dog, however, is an American term dating from about the time of the Civil War, when it became slang for putting on a flashy display and dressing up, or, as Lyman H. Bagg put it about 1869, "to cut a swell" (Four Years at Yale). One writer believes it came from the practice of the nouveau riche of displaying their wealth not only in clothes, jewelry, and houses, but by keeping extravagantly pampered lapdogs, which therefore became a symbol of putting on a showy display. This turn of phrase is still current, but we rarely hear of someone looking like a dog's dinner, which had much the same meaning -- that is, wearing glaringly smart attire and putting on airs. A still later expression is a dog-and-pony show, signifying an elaborate presentation designed to gain approval for a product or policy. It dates from the mid-20th century and alludes to a traveling variety show.

Today considered mainly a lapdog and often given an elaborate haircut, the poodle once was used in hunting to retrieve the hunter's shot-down waterfowl. Its name comes from the German Pudel, in turn from the Low German pudeln, meaning to splash about in water.

Love Me, Love My Dog

"Old dog Tray's ever faithful; Grief cannot drive him away; He is gentle, he is kind -- I'll never never find A better friend than old dog Tray."

-- Stephen Foster, Old Dog Tray (1853)

Certainly one trait widely attributed to dogs is their faithfulness to their owners, which has made them valued companions. Stephen Foster's paean to "old dog Tray" expresses a widely accepted sentiment, and indeed has become a folk song. And Fido, presumably based on the Latin fides for "faithful," was long a very popular name for pet dogs. All the more puzzling, then, is the late 20th-century teenage slang expression, doggin', for cheating on one's partner.

As long ago as 1150 or so the learned St. Bernard of Clairvaux said, Qui me amat, amat et canem meam -- or Love me, love my dog -- an expression of unconditional affection that crops up in numerous languages. Incidentally, the St. Bernard breed of dog is named not for this French monk but for an Italian churchman, St. Bernard of Menthon, who spent his life working in the Val d'Aosta in northwest Italy and founded an Alpine hospice on the Great St. Bernard Pass (also named for him), where these big shaggy dogs were bred for Alpine rescue work.

Dogs originally were domesticated for their usefulness in hunting, herding, and keeping watch. From the first pursuit, considered a natural one for canines, we have the Southern expression, that dog won't hunt, meaning that idea won't work. Dogs still are used for these and other special tasks, such as guiding the blind and sniffing out illegal drugs.

It may be hard to teach an old dog new tricks, or so proverbs have said since the early 17th century, but in fact dogs have been trained to perform highly skilled tasks. One such job was to turn the spit holding meat over an open fire, an important culinary task from early times. To do this work manually is tedious and time-consuming. Therefore someone in the 16th century devised a wheel-cage mounted at one end of the roasting spit and put a dog inside it; the dog would run around and around the wheel, making the spit turn so that the meat cooked evenly. If the dog's efforts flagged, a live coal might be put inside the wheel to revive its ardor. The Abergavenny Town Museum in Wales displays a picture of a turnspit, a small dog bred just for this purpose. It had a long body, short legs, and a stumpy tail, a shape quite suitable for being put inside the wheel-cage. In this instance the name of the mechanism became the name of the dog's breed. In time, however, the turnspit was replaced with a clockwork mechanism to turn the spit (also pictured in the museum), and the dog part of the name somehow attached itself to andirons (about 1800), which were called firedogs. Possibly the name was first used for andirons shaped like dogs and eventually extended to mean any andiron.

Hair of the Dog

"I pray thee let me and my fellow have a haire of the dog that bit us last night."

-- John Heywood, Proverbs (1546)

The hair of the dog, an ancient recipe for curing a hangover that consists of having a little of the same intoxicating drink the next morning, comes from the even older folk remedy of placing the burnt hair of a dog that had bitten someone on the wound. Allegedly this was the best antidote to the aftereffects of dogbite. No doubt it cured rabies about as effectively as liquor cures the aftereffects of a drinking spree.

One side effect of alcoholic overindulgence is urinary frequency, causing the imbiber to see a man about a dog fairly often. This euphemism for excusing oneself to go to the toilet became common in the 1860s in both America and Britain.

Another consequence of a spree can be guilt feelings, especially if drinking loosened normal inhibitions enough to make one say or do something embarrassing. The result may be a hangdog look, meaning an extremely shamefaced one. In medieval and Renaissance England each large country house had a pack of dogs, and some of the dogs inevitably turned out to be incorrigible sinners. They might be guilty of worrying the barnyard fowl, biting family members or guests, digging up the garden, or similar misdeeds, and it was common practice to get rid of them by hanging them. Shakespeare mentions the hanging of dogs in half a dozen of his plays, and a ballad from about 1660 says, "Why rings all these bells? What dog is a-hanging?" The term in its present meaning of looking guilty is thought to come from the characteristic appearance of either the official hangman of dogs or the cowering terrified look of a dog about to meet this fate.

Two other terms connected to canine looks are dog-eared, used since about 1650 for the corner of a page folded over and so resembling the ear found in many dog breeds, and the dogtooth violet (Erythronium americanum), a wildflower so named because its long, sharply reflexed petals resemble canine teeth. And in humans the four cuspid teeth, on either side of the incisors, also are called canines for their resemblance to the prominent four pointed teeth on either side of a dog's jaw.

The derogatory epithet dogface, for an ugly person, may well be objected to by dog-owners who regard their animals as beautiful. Nevertheless, it began to be used derisively for humans in the mid-1800's. A century or so later it acquired a military meaning, a low-ranking enlisted man, and this usage coexists with the earlier one.

The names of man-made canine equipment have also been transferred. Pet dogs usually wear a collar bearing a tag identifying the owner. Consequently the name dog collar has been transferred to such objects such as a lady's tightfitting, wide necklace, also called a choker, or, somewhat irreverently, the high stiff collar worn by priests and other clergymen. The former usage dates from about 1915, the latter from about 1860.

Sometime during World War I the name dogtag began to be applied to the identification tag worn by military personnel.

Dogs of War

"Cry 'Havoc,' and let slip the dogs of war."

-- William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

Shakespeare's metaphor occurs in Mark Antony's soliloquy, in which he sadly predicts that Caesar's legacy will unloose the ghastly horrors of war on all of Italy. The fierceness of dogs fighting each other, an entertainment as old and popular as cockfighting, is referred to in dogfight, a World War I term for a violent engagement among fighter planes. The loser of a dogfight (between dogs) was called the underdog, a term later (late 19th century) extended to competitors in politics, sports and other activities who were expected to lose. Fans frequently root for underdogs, both because they want them to win and because they want to see the upset of the odds-on favorite, or top dog. One theory holds that underdog and top dog come from the lumber industry. In premechanized times, logs from felled trees were placed over a pit dug in the ground, and two men used a long saw to cut the timber. One man, the bottom sawyer, stood in the pit and, since he had the worse job of the two, becoming covered in sawdust, was called "the underdog." The other, the top sawyer, stood at ground level and guided the saw, and so was called "top dog."

Ruthless competition in which no quarter is given is sometimes described as dog eat dog, a saying that dates from the 16th century and became current in the United States in the early 1800s. A much older observation, however, is that dogs are not by nature cannibals and do not usually devour their own kind; it was made by the Roman man of letters Marcus Terentius Varro, in 43 B.C. (Canis caninam non est) and became a proverb.

Even older is the proverbial dog in the manger, from Aesop's fable (c. 570 B.C.) about a snarling dog who prevents the horses from eating their corn, even though the dog himself does not want it. The term is still used for an individual who, out of sheer meanness, takes or keeps something desired by another.

Given their potential fierceness, it was long ago concluded that it is safer to let sleeping dogs lie, that is, not to rouse a sleeping watchdog but to leave well enough alone. Rabelais quotes this 13th-century proverb, as did Chaucer in Troilus and Cressida: "It is nought good a sleping hound to wake, nor yeve a wight a cause to devyne" (It is not good to wake a sleeping hound, nor give a person a reason to speculate).

Sailors call either of two suppertime watches the dogwatch -- that is, a bad watch because it causes them to miss a meal. However, a very experienced sailor will sometimes be called a seadog, usually regarded as a compliment. The first dates from about 1700; the second from about 1590, when it meant a pirate or privateer and only later signified "highly experienced."

"Big Dog"

Among the sights of the North Italian city of Verona are the Tombs of the Scaligere, masterpieces of Gothic sculpture in memory of the della Scala family, who overcame various foreign nobles in the mid-13th century and launched an era of prosperity that lasted till the late 14th century. They include Francesco della Scala (died 1329), called Cangrande, or Big Dog, whose tomb rests on two dogs and who himself is depicted on horseback with a dog-shaped helmet hanging down his back; his nephew Mastino II (died 1351), called the Mastiff, and Mastino's son (died 1375), called Consignorio, or Lord Dog. Despite the traditional negative association of dogs, this family apparently loved the animals and therefore many of its members happily took nicknames associated with them. No other reason is known. The family crest, however, was not a dog but a ladder (since la scala means "ladder").

Hot Dog

"'Hot dog,' whispered Hydrangea."

--Elliott Paul, Mayhem in B-flat (1940)

Some would argue that not even apple pie is as American as hot dogs, which came upon the scene in the late 1800s. Hot sausages in rolls had been consumed for many years, and sometimes were even sold by street vendors in the 19th century. Supposedly it was Harry Mozely Stevens, who owned the food concession at the Polo Grounds (home of the New York Giants baseball team), who first sold sausages in heated buns with mustard and relish. Several sources hold that because of their resemblance to the short-legged, long-bodied dachshund, he called them "dachshund sausages." Allegedly the famous sports cartoonist T. A. Dorgan, who signed his work TAD, could not spell the German breed name and so coined the name hot dog.

However, it was long alleged that meat for sausages came from dogs (the idea was cited in a New York newspaper in 1836). According to several lexicographers, in the mid-1890s Yale University students began to call the sausages "dogs," and the October 19, 1895 issue of the Yale Record referred to students munching "hot dogs."

Indeed, the notion that sausage might be made from dog meat was occasionally a problem, and in 1913 the Coney Island Chamber of Commerce ruled that the name "hot dog" could not be used on the boardwalk for this reason. Fortunately the hot dog lived down this undeserved slander, and a restaurant on Coney Island, Nathan's, became the most famous and successful purveyor of hot dogs.

As a food item the hot dog has remained immensely popular both in and out of ballparks, a staple of the backyard barbecue, carnival, circus, parade ground, and fast-food restaurant. Variations such as the chili dog, featuring spicier condiments, have been developed but have not displaced the classic hot dog.

Since a hot dog is generally regarded as a good thing, by extension the slang expression "Hot dog!" came to be an exclamation of excellence or approval, much like "Oh, boy!" or "Great!" In the second half of the 20th century a new meaning surfaced in the world of sports. A hot dog now was a winner who crowed over a loser, and to hot dog meant to show off, at first with athletic feats but soon extended to any kind of bravura display.

The hot dog is one food item not likely to be taken home in a doggy bag, a term dating from the latter part of the 20th century. Whether it was the result of restaurants doling out larger portions or of diners' shrinking appetites, the practice of packing up a patron's leftover food became very widespread. It is so called for the alleged provisioning of the patron's pet, which is largely fictional, since the leftovers most often enter human mouths..