origin of ‘doggy bag’ (to take home leftover food)

8th April 2018.Reading time 5 minutes.

USA, 1950s—The noun ‘doggy (or doggie) bag (or pack)’ denotes a bag, provided on request by the management of a restaurant, in which a diner may take home any leftovers; apparently, these leftovers were originally intended for the diner’s pet dog.

‘to see a man about a dog’

9th November 2017.Reading time 12 minutes.

UK, 1865—vague excuse for leaving to keep an undisclosed appointment, or, now frequently, to go to the toilet—perhaps originally with allusion to dogfighting

a 19th-century document on English phrases

7th October 2017.Reading time 6 minutes.

remarks on English phrases (‘to rain cats and dogs’, ‘tit for tat’, ‘the devil to pay’, etc.) – from Notes and Queries (London), 9th November 1861

origin of ‘Linus blanket’ (security blanket)

2nd October 2017.Reading time 8 minutes.

US, 1958: security blanket—from ‘Linus’, the name of a small boy who carries a blanket for comfort in the comic strip ‘Peanuts’, by Charles M. Schulz

meaning and origin of ‘the dog’s letter’

8th July 2017.Reading time 6 minutes.

Named after Latin ‘canina litera’ (‘the canine letter’), ‘the dog’s letter’ is a name for the letter R, from its resemblance in sound to the snarl of a dog.

padoodle (one-eyed car)

29th May 2017.Reading time 15 minutes.

padoodle (USA): exclamation shouted by a person who spots a car with only one working headlight, which entitles this person to kiss or hit someone else

Yorkshire tyke

23rd May 2017.Reading time 10 minutes.

The word ‘tyke’, a nickname for a person from Yorkshire, originally meant ‘mongrel’. The people from Yorkshire have adopted it as a term of self-reference.

hair of the dog

4th May 2017.Reading time 8 minutes.

A Mad Dog in a Coffee House (London, 20th March 1809) by the English caricaturist Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827) The term hair of the dog denotes an alcoholic drink taken to cure a hangover. It is a shortening of the phrase hair of the dog that bit you, first recorded in A dialogue […]

hot dog

27th March 2017.Reading time 9 minutes.

Greenwich Village Fair – “Hot Dogs” – June 1917 photograph: Library of Congress The term hot dog denotes a sausage, especially a frankfurter, served hot in a long roll split lengthways. In US slang, the noun dog has been used to denote a sausage since the late 19th century. This usage is first recorded […]

to sell a pup

22nd December 2016.Reading time 3 minutes.

photograph: Dog-Names-And-More.com Frequently used in the passive, the phrase to sell someone a pup means to swindle someone, especially by selling something of little worth on its supposed prospective value. And to buy a pup means to be swindled. The expression is first recorded in 1901. That year, several newspapers gave its most likely origin; for example, the […]