Siamese Connection (1879, 1884); Underdog (1884)

[Baker, John]

        If it's really from the Barker poem (that is, if Barker really originated the phrase, rather than using an existing term), then it seems to have spread rapidly.  From the Dec. 1862 Harper's, via Making of America (Cornell):

        <<"And, bretheren, you and I know that occasionally, if not oftener, I've been the under-dog in the fight.  Many's the lammin' I've took from him.  But when he had the best of it, and I was jes ready to give in beat, the Lord reached out the hand, and I up and at him agin."

John Baker


-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf
Of Benjamin Zimmer
Sent: Thursday, May 19, 2005 4:08 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: Siamese Connection (1879, 1884); Underdog (1884)


On Thu, 19 May 2005 15:13:37 -0400, Fred Shapiro <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
wrote:

>1859 David Barker [is that name for real?] [poem entitled "The Under Dog
>in the Fight"] in _Liberator_ 28 Oct. 172 [American Periodical Series]
>But for _me_ -- and I care not a single fig If they say I am wrong or
>right -- I shall always go in for the _weaker_ dog, For the under dog in
>the fight.

An early hyphenated example, via Literature Online:

1866 C. G. HALPINE _Baked Meats of the Funeral_ 331 Always with a tendency
to side with the "under-dog" in every fight.

http://etext.virginia.edu/cgi-local/chad-pt/pageturner.pl?id=eaf563T&image=563-344.jpg
(page image requires subscription to Chadwyck-Healey)


--Ben Zimmer