The replacement of the doggy bag

[Victor Steinbok]

In a sketch about his wife not paying him enough attention, Jimmy Fallon
said his wife and the dog were out for dinner and he was hoping they
would bring home a Jimmy bag. I've always considered use of "doggy bag"
for carry-out leftovers to be standard whether it was intended for dogs
or people.

The new meaning might be a truncation, of sorts, for "doggy doo bag.
Both meanings appear to have been verbed ("He's dog-bagging it.")

There's a third, deliberately ambiguous meaning -- a carry bag to keep
lap dogs in.

     VS-)

On 3/6/2014 10:04 PM, Benjamin Barrett wrote:
> It seemed to me as a child that my grandmother used the word "doggy bag" as a euphemism for "a bag for me." (When she had a dog, she also used it to mean a bag for the dog.)
>
> In my experience, buttressed by asking two people in the restaurant industry, people don't really use this expression much any more. They ask to get the rest to go.
>
> If it's true that this expression is indeed dying out, I wonder whether it's because there is a higher level of acceptability in society for taking uneaten food home.
>
> While looking on Google Images shows that this expression has not yet died out, it also shows that the "doggy bag" has taken on the meaning of a dog poop bag.
>
> Benjamin Barrett
> Formerly of Seattle, WA

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