The replacement of the doggy bag

[Herb Stahlke]

It also, not surprisingly, has a social distribution.  In many small towns
and rural areas the practice of picking up dog poop hasn't become common,
so a doggie bag is still for taking food home from a restaurant.

Herb


On Fri, Mar 7, 2014 at 2:31 PM, Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: The replacement of the doggy bag
>
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>
> 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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