991. This week, we trace the origin and meaning of the word "dog," from its mysterious beginning to its current use in phrases like "hot dog" and "hair of the dog." Then we go through the "audience of one" concept, which involves tailoring content to a single, imagined recipient; and we look at how this approach can make your writing more understandable and engaging.
991. This week, we trace the origin and meaning of the word "dog," from its mysterious beginning to its current use in phrases like "hot dog" and "hair of the dog." Then we go through the "audience of one" concept, which involves tailoring content to a single, imagined recipient; and we look at how this approach can make your writing more understandable and engaging.
The dog segment was written by Valerie Fridland, a professor of linguistics at the University of Nevada in Reno and the author of "Like, Literally, Dude: Arguing for the Good in Bad English." A version of the piece originally appeared on Psychology Today, and you can find her at valeriefridland.com.
| Edited transcript with links: https://grammar-girl.simplecast.com/episodes/hotdog/transcript
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Grammar Girl here. I’m Mignon Fogarty, your friendly guide to the English language. We talk about writing, history, rules, and other cool stuff. Today we'll talk about the words we use to refer to dogs, a writing concept called "the audience of one," your comments about the medial S, and more, and finally, a familect story about a footbridge.
by Valerie Fridland
Dogs may be man’s best friend, but how did the word itself go from a term for our furry canine friends to a word for everything from our feet to a type of meat we put on a bun?
Well first, words have a natural tendency to shift and morph in meaning over time as they get used in different contexts, and they take on other subtle shades of meaning related to their original sense. Take the word “silly,” for example. In Old English times, “silly” meant “blessed.” Since those who are pious or blessed are often looked at as fairly innocent, the meaning of the word took on a sense of hapless innocence. It didn’t take long for people to start to pity those hapless innocent fools and, voilà, the word shifted once more to its current meaning.
Likewise, the word “dog” in English has changed meanings over the course of its history. But, before we get into the different ways that “dog” has shifted, we first have to figure out where the word even came from, as that is a bit of an etymological mystery. We find some traces of the word in Old English, mainly as “docga,” but there were very few examples of its use in writing before Middle English, where it became “dogge.”
Since most of the words related to “dog” found in other languages, like German “dogge” to refer to a mastiff, occur later than its earliest appearance in English, it is likely it was a borrowing to describe a dog common to or bred in England. Most curiously, before its appearance in early English, there are no clear traces of the word in any ancestor language. Some people speculate that the word might have developed as a diminutive of the Germanic word “dox,” meaning "dark" (as in a darkly colored dog), a similar process hypothesized to have given rise to a number of Old English animal names of vague origin that also end in “g” like “frog,” “hog,” and “stag.” Still, not many Old English dogs would have even known the term, since the Germanic word “hund” was the generic word for a dog back then. “Dogca” seems to have mainly been used when talking about an aggressive hund, or, a bit later, a specific breed, particularly a mastiff. In what is a bit of a linguistic turnabout, today’s “hound” (from yesterday's “hund”) has now shifted in meaning to refer only to a particular type of dog, while “dog” has replaced “hund” as the umbrella term. Gotta love those little linguistic twists.
Much as we love furry companions today, the dogs of yore tended to be hunting dogs or guard dogs rather than house pets and were often considered vicious or unpleasant. This attitude is probably what led the meaning of the word to expand to not just the animal itself, but, by the 14th century, to be metaphorically put to work as an insult for people acting like a canine ruffian in some way. We see Shakespeare making good use of the word like this in Henry VI, calling out some men as “Dogges, Cowards, Dastards.” Relatedly, its use to call out a mischievous but possibly somewhat loveable scoundrel, as in “You dog!” arose around the 18th century. The extension of “dog” to refer to an unattractive person is relatively recent, but one that also draws on making a direct human to canine comparison, with the first citation in the 1930s. And since we love to change nouns to verbs whenever possible (as in the transformation of “parent” into “parenting” and “adult” into “adulting”), we started dogging people, meaning to follow a bit too closely, by the 16th century (presumably also an unattractive characteristic of our four legged friends).
Now, all these new senses are clearly derived from the personification of some trait associated with a dog itself, but the bigger question is how did a word for canines somehow start to become associated with a type of sausage?
The term “hot dog” first appeared in the late 1800s as part of college slang to refer to a sausage. Though not a characteristic of dogs themselves, this meaning likely arose from lore, still common among many who eat at college cafeterias today, that the “mystery” meat found in college dining halls hailed from a cheaper form of meat, in other words, dog meat. The “hot” seems to come from the fact that it was served warm, giving us “hot dogs.”
A reference to dog meat has also been invoked as the potential inspiration for using ‘dogs” as a colloquial reference to feet, as in “my dogs are aching,” only this time arising from slang poetry that rhymed “feet” with “dog’s meat” in the early 1900s, and the association stuck.
And speaking of the relation between dogs and random body parts, how did we end up with the “hair of the dog,” as a reference to a hangover curing cocktail? That one — short for "hair of the dog that bit you" — comes from a 16th century belief that one should consume the hair of the offending dog as a remedy if you had the bad luck of encountering a rabid dog.
Clearly, over the course of English’s history, our furry friends have provided both companionship and linguistic inspiration. One might even say they’ve been working like dogs in the service of English’s semantic expansion, unless, of course, you’re one of those who believes our language is going to the dogs: Then it might just be a dog-gone shame.
That segment was written by Valerie Fridland, a professor of linguistics at the University of Nevada in Reno and the author of "Like, Literally, Dude: Arguing for the Good in Bad English." You can find her at valeriefridland.com.
by Mignon Fogarty
There's a communication concept I've been running into over and over lately called "the audience of one." For example, if you've been listening for a while, you may remember that I'm taking an audiobook narration course run by David H. Lawrence the 17th, which is really fun, by the way, I'm having a great time!
And in that course, David talked about imagining an audience of one. As you're narrating, don't think of all the people who could be listening, but imagine one person who will be listening — and read to that one person. For example, it can help you decide on your tone. Maybe you're trying to convince the listener of something — or alternatively, maybe you're preaching to the choir — and you might say things differently — use a different tone — in those two situations.
In marketing, this is related to the idea of creating personas. If you're marketing audiobooks, your audience of one for one email campaign may be a single mother who wishes she could enjoy more books, and for another campaign it may be a person who commutes on the subway in New York. Marketers get really into this concept of creating personas and often even give these imaginary people names and mock up pictures of them. These personas still represent groups of people, but the point is that you'd use different language in your campaigns that target Mallory, the single mom or Maria, the subway commuter because they are each your conceptual audience of one for that campaign.
And then, one of my LinkedIn Learning courses that just came out is about writing with plain language, which is a style of writing that's required for people in the U.S. government, and it's being adopted by more and more companies too because it's been proven to be such an effective way to communicate.
There's a lot to it, but one of the elements is that you want to speak — or write — to an audience of one: in a way that feels like you're having a one-on-one conversation with the reader, which in practical terms, means using the pronouns "you," "your," and "I."
Here's a simple example: instead of writing "People have a lot of empty time when they commute on the subway," write "You have a lot of empty time when you commute on the subway."
It's a simple change, but multiple studies back up the idea that audiences are more receptive to this kind of message. It mimics the way we normally talk to each other, and it makes people feel like the material is approachable and for them.
For example, a study by the Federal Communications Commission (the FCC) found that readers liked documents that had section headings, and they liked those headings even more when the headings were written with pronouns. For example, readers will like “Information you need for the project” more than “Information consumers need for the project.”
And in a very different study that found something similar, in 2017, Dane Golden and Phil Starkovich looked at 30,000 YouTube videos for TubeBuddy and Hey.com. And what they found was that saying the word "you" just once in the first 5 seconds of a video increased overall views by an average of 66%. And that views could be increased by 97% — essentially doubling the view count — if the YouTuber said the word "you" twice in the first 5 seconds.
Now, I don't know if that's true anymore. Online algorithms have changed a lot since 2017, and I know YouTube thumbnails are really important these days. But because of all the other ways we know the word "you" is compelling, it wouldn't surprise me if having "you" at the beginning of your video or in your title still bumps up views today.
So the word "you" definitely appeals to people. Think about the famous McDonald's tagline, "You deserve a break today," or the Uncle Sam poster that says "I want you." And actually the "you" in the name "YouTube."
But there's also more going on than just this one magic word. Both the YouTube study and the FCC Plain Language Workbook point out that when you frame your message with the word "you," you're also creating that audience of one in your own mind, and you're more likely to focus on what the viewer of your video wants to get out of it or to understand what the reader is really looking for from your document about FCC regulations, and that can also subtly — or maybe not so subtly — change the way you write a document or script, the information you include, and how you organize it. You're essentially adopting your audience's perspective, and understanding your audience and their needs is always an essential part of creating great content.
So the next time you sit down to write something, whether it's a blog post, a marketing email, or instructions on how to complete some form or application process, think about the ways you can take your reader's perspective and present the information as a conversation between you and that audience of one.
And if you'd like to learn more about writing with plain language, I can honestly say that of all my seven LinkedIn Learning courses, my plain language course changed my own writing the most. The concepts are really simple to implement, but also just transformative. And you can find that course by searching for my name Mignon Fogarty, at LinkedIn Learning, which is, you know, on LinkedIn, but also available free through many county and university libraries.
Before we get to the familect this week, a few of you had interesting comments about recent shows.
First, regarding our piece on the long S or the medial S, a listener from Germany who goes by Faxeffm said that the German double S that we mentioned in that episode is actually a shortening of the letter S and Z. We simply said "the long S lives on today in the German double S." So I looked into this a bit more, and the German double S, as we called it, is known as the Eszett or sharp S in German, and it kind of looks like a fancy capital letter B.
And Faxeffm is correct, most sources say it originally started as a ligature connecting the long S to the letter Z.
German isn't my specialty, but I believe the Eszett is primarily used today for the double S sound — after long vowels and diphthongs, so in words like "Straße" ( for "street"). So in that sense, historically, the German letter that's written kind of like the letter B (the Eszett) does historically come from a ligature of the long S and the letter Z even though it is pronounced as a double S today.
And then Toby from San Antonio called and pointed me to an episode of the TV show "Cheers" from 1985 of all things that had a joke about the medial S. Frasier convinces Woody to run for city council, and then they have this conversation in the bar:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ihq21s2XUA
Woody: I'm boning up on the Constitution in case I ever want to run for Congreff.
Frasier: It's "Congress," Woody. In colonial times the S's looked like F's.
Woody: Ah, well, if I'm elected, that's the first thing I'm going to change.
Funny, even if it is a little simplified! And then they ended the bit with this a minute or so later:
https://youtu.be/5Ihq21s2XUA?si=a1RV-uqcG0OjFSEW&t=91
Woody: It's too bad though. I was really looking forward to being a good city councilman and working hard to make sure that every person in my district was ensured life, liberty, and the purfuit of happineff.
Thanks so much for the call, Toby. That's a great find.
And then a listener named Ben Scrunton wrote in with some really interesting observations about letters like S and long S in other languages in that they also have letters that are written differently depending on where they appear in a word.
He mentioned Greek, which has the letter Sigma, which is the equivalent of the Latin letter S. He said the lowercase has two different forms, one used at the end of words and another used everywhere else. And then also a few Hebrew letters that work the same way. That's so interesting! And I'm sorry, but I can't answer your question about what purpose having these letters be different depending on their position serves in languages. I did some searching, but nothing I found seemed that convincing to me. But thank you for the interesting message and good luck with your writing!
And next, a listener named Ronnie from Mastodon was intrigued by other listener's comments that the fast food chain Arby's gets its name from the letters R and B, which everyone seemed to think stands for "roast beef," but Ronnie did some searching and found that the name does come from "RB," but those letters originally stood for the "Raffel Brothers," who were the founders: Forrest and Leroy Raffel. It's apparently a common misconception that "RB" stands for "roast beef" and also a nice coincidence for the brand.
Finally, I have a familect story from a Grammarpaloozian named Linda.
Hi, Grammar Girl. This is Grammarpaloozian Linda in Iowa with a familect story. It's not our own word, but a different use of a word. Years ago, my best friend and I lived together and we shared several pets, including two male dogs. And one day, the two dogs that had been best buds suddenly decided they hated each other. And we get into terrible fights if we let them get together. So we wanted to keep both dogs, so one dog would be locked in a bedroom while the other one roamed free. And they took turns on days when we went to work as to who was in and who was out. And when we came home, we would change them every hour so we could spend quality time with each dog. Inevitably, the dog in the bedroom would start to scratch on the door or whine, wanting out after about 45 minutes. They had an excellent clock. Well, we'd recently watched the movie "The Music Man," and there's a point in the movie where Professor Harold Hill tells Marion the librarian that he'll meet her at the footbridge in 15 minutes. So instead of telling the dog when he wanted out that he had to wait 15 minutes, we would say, "You have to wait a footbridge." And to this day, we still use "footbridge" to mean 15 minutes. So I'll be home in a footbridge. Another thing we use from "The Music Man," which a lot of people may do, no matter what type of delivery truck we see, UPS, FedEx, Amazon Prime, we call all of them the Wells Fargo Wagon, particularly if they're coming to our house bringing us something. Enjoy the podcast, and all the tips you send to us Grammarpaloozians. Looking forward to more.
Thanks so much Linda, for your support and for sharing your familect! If you want to share your familect, a word or phrase your family and only your family uses, call the voicemail line at 83-321-4-GIRL.
And if you're a Grammarpalooza subscriber like Linda, you can also send a voice memo. I send text messages with fun facts a couple of times a week and answer questions. It's $4.99 a month. It's a great way to support the show and the first two weeks are free, so you can see if you like it. Last week, people got stories about the origin of the words "shrapnel" and "patter," which has a surprisingly religious origin, plus a link where they could watch the Scripps National Spelling Bee free. To sign up, visit https://joinsubtext.com/grammar or text "hello" to (917) 540-0876.
Grammar Girl is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast. Thanks to Holly Hutchings in digital operations, Davina Tomlin in marketing; Morgan Christianson in advertising; Nathan Semes, in audio; Brannan Goetschius, director of podcasts, and Kamryn Lacey in marketing, who has started learning how to play golf.
And I’m Mignon Fogarty, better known as Grammar Girl. Remember to look for the show again Thursday, when I have a fun interview with Ben Zimmer about the 100th anniversary of the crossword puzzle craze. You won't believe what people used to say about crossword puzzles!
That's all. Thanks for listening.
***
The following references for the "dog" segment did not appear in the audio but are included here for completeness.
Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “dog (n.1),” March 2024, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/6646229330.
Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “dog (v.1),” March 2024, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/3730924572.