DogGONE!!

[Jonathan Lighter]

This came to my attention too late to get into HDAS 1. Some exx.

  1996 _Martin_ (Fox-TV): Come on, dog! Look!

  1997 _N.Y. Times_ (Jan. 25) (Metro) 25: _Dog_...buddy.

  *1998 _markie 19/M england_ (Usenet: alt.teens.pen-pals) (Nov. 27) http://groups.google.com/group/alt.teens.penpals/msg/d6e09ea8e8f68cdf?hl=en&: Oh and all americans say "hey dawg wazzup dawg" originality please!

  1999 _Everybody Loves Raymond_ (CBS-TV): "Dog." That's a nice thing. You say it to your  friends. It means "I like you."

  2000 M. Rich _Finding Forrester_ (film): I'm your _brother_, dog! ...You're the man now, dog!

  2000 W. Shatner, on Priceline.com TV ad: You want some of this? Then you know what to do, dog! Bust a move!

  2002 _Fox & Friends_ (FNC-TV) (May 10): He's a cool dog.

  2002 _JAG_ (CBS-TV): Whyn't you call the nurse, dog?

  By 1997 it was endemic among my (mostly white) undergraduates. It's usually used in direct address, and mostly to and in ref. to men.

  JL

Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
  ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Wilson Gray
Subject: Re: DogGONE!!
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This usage of "dog" is years old. My guess is that, if this is new to
you, you don't have any relationships with black people deep enough to
motivate you to demonstrate any degree of hipness nor do you pay any
attention to TV shows that feature black characters. So, if I were
you, I wouldn't give it a second thought. It's not worth the effort.

-Wilson

On 9/2/07, Doug Harris wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Doug Harris
> Subject: DogGONE!!
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> From today's LA Times, by a female black reporter from
> Britain, who spent 14 months in New Orleans post-Katrina.
> (Note the 'dog' reference in the second paragraph):
>
> "Our people be everywhere," Dwayne Holmes, a heavyset African American
> 16-year-old, said with a grin one day as he and his pals sat on a stoop on a
> street in crime-plagued Central City.
> Holmes wanted to know whether black youth in England also called each
> other "dog" as a term of endearment.
> For the most part, we have our own lingo, I told him.
> ---------
> Is this a new usage? Being neither black nor what the quoted reporter refers
> to as a New Orleanian, I have no idea if this "term of endearment" is one
> that's been in use there a while, or if it's to be found elsewhere, too.
> 'Any insights, anyone?
> (the other) doug
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


--
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
-Sam'l Clemens

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