Dawgs

[Charles Doyle]

I went to a football game this past weekend, the University of Georgia vs. Mississippi State.  Each university has for its totem the bulldog.  Each university features its team as the "Dawgs"; the University of Georgia (at least) has been doing so for many years.

It wasn't much of a game, so I had time to wonder about that spelling in a region where "dawg" represents what has been the traditional pronunciation anyway--with that "open o" that dialects of many regions are losing apace.  Among (old-fashioned) "Southern" speakers, the "dog"/"dawg" distinction would be simply orthographic (like "come"/"cum"). But what about the semantics?  Is it (or was it when it originated) merely a playful bit of self-conscious eye-dialect?

Or, is the spelling something like a Confederate battle flag to be waved into the face of non-Southerners?  Or perhaps it simply suggests "tradition" for fans of the University of Georgia (I don't know about MSU), whose campus is now prevalently populated by first- and second-generation /dag/-speaking Northern immigrants?

Is it because we lost that war 140 years ago that Southerners have been so absorbed, obsessed with issues of our regional identity?  A mom-and-pop restaurant in a small Georgia town will advertise its "Southern cooking," as if that weren't the default . . . .

Oh, yes, the Dawgs won the game.  Barely.

--Charlie

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