Exploring Dog Metaphors in Human Relations

Last week I wrote about the several situations and emotions for which dogs stand as our go-to metaphors, from happiness to dejection, and from aggression to pliability. This week I want to look at some further doggy metaphors.

(The dates I give after words or phrases are for their earliest appearance in that meaning as noted in the OED.)

Social relations in general:

We often take dogs as our yardstick to talk about how we relate to each other, or ought to.

For instance, the oldest phrase that I can think of under this heading is ‘Dog does not eat dog’, which seemingly descends from the Latin of the first-century BC grammarian Varro: canis caninam nōn ēst, ‘Dog does not eat of dog flesh’.

(Note the macron, length mark, over the e of ēst, to show that it’s not est, ‘is’.)

The earliest English version dates to 1543: ‘That the prouerb may haue a place on dog will not eat of an other dogges fleshe nether will on wolf eat of an other’, in the writing of an extreme Protestant.  

So this is an appeal to intraspecies solidarity, a warning not to bite others in your line of business or profession in case they bite you back.

But then there’s its sort of opposite, ‘It’s a dog-eat-dog world’. The idea was first recorded in the early nineteenth century in this example from the OED. Note the relationship between the phrase and ‘honour amongst thieves’:

‘Come, Giles, let’s see the contents of the purse—honour amongst thieves, you know.’ ‘Yes, yes,’ added the old woman; ‘no dog eat dog in this house.’ (1822)

But the specific phrase ‘dog-eat-dog world’ is first cited by the OED as from 1959. I love that it has its own eggcorn: ‘a doggy-dog world’.

Hierarchy:

Among the diverse aspects of human relations sits the notion of hierarchy, who’s the boss, who the underling. And dog images come in very handy here, too. For every top dog (1900 in this meaning) there has to be an underdog (1859, from a US newspaper) – or more likely, several. And the person who is in the doghouse (1926: originally US) is self-evidently not a top dog.

One proverb I’m particularly fond of is ‘If you’re not the lead dog, the view never changes’ (1980). It conjures up a very vivid image of a team of huskies pulling a sled across the vast, snow-covered expanses of the Canadian wilderness. Clearly any dog behind the lead dog or pair of dogs is just going to be gazing eternally into the lead dog’s or dogs’ backside.

And then doggy images come in very handy when we wish to talk about the social order being upended: ‘It’s the tail wagging the dog’ and variants is another US coinage, first cited in 1871, referencing a play of 1858. It describes when someone who is less important somehow has more influence or freedom of action then someone considered more important.

Then there’s the saying ‘Why keep a dog and bark yourself?’ In other words, if you employ or pay someone to perform a service for you, you really shouldn’t have to do it yourself. To me this somehow sounds like quite a modern turn of phrase, but in fact it goes back all the way to the sixteenth century, which I quote for the delightful spelling: ‘It is smal reason you should kepe a dog and barke your selfe.’

I was lexicographically delighted when a neighbour who, like me, sits on the management committee running where we live, reacted to the management company not doing as requested with a curt email: ‘I used to think He who pays the piper calls the tune, but now it’s the tail wagging the dog.’

Other animals:

Dogs aren’t the only beasts we call on when wishing to metaphorise hierarchy. For instance, we can talk about fat cats, a phrase which dates back to the third decade of the twentieth century. And who could ever forget that wonderful cartoon Top Cat, with its glorious theme tune?

But then there’s the wonderful ‘If two ride on a horse, one must ride behind’ which first appears in Shakespeare’s Much Ado about Nothing – ‘An two men ride of a horse, one must ride behind’. Given Shakespeare’s extensive use of proverbs in his plays, he’s here presumably using an existing one, not coining it.

And then swapping water for the land we can talk about being ‘a big fish in a small pond’ (1871), when someone has a great deal of influence or repute in a very limited ambit and then moves to a larger context in which they become less important. I have a clear recollection of first hearing this from a dear, now departed, friend at university all those years ago. In a similar aqueous vein, one can talk of minnows (1596) or small fry (1652), and their opposite, big fish (1827; US).  

This post illustrates, if it needed illustrating, just how many colourful or evocative phrases come from US English.

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The image heading this post is courtesy of Yuriy Vertikov on Unsplash.