[Ads-l] "put on the dog" -- Mississippi vernacular?

[Jonathan Lighter]

See HDAS.

Familiar to me since childhood, but I admit I haven't heard it in some
years.

The journalist is how old?

JL

On Sat, Nov 1, 2014 at 8:41 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: "put on the dog" -- Mississippi vernacular?
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I'm familiar with it, and I've only been close to=20
> Mississippi.  One quotation in the OED:
>
> S.v. "lace-curtain":  1934   J. T. Farrell Young=20
> Manhood Studs Lonigan xviii. 282   They were all=20
> trying to put on the dog, show that they were=20
> lace-curtain Irish, and lived in steam-heat.
>
> Joel
>
> At 11/1/2014 12:06 PM, George Thompson wrote:
>
> > From a front-page article in today's (November 1) NYTimes, on extravagant
> >partying before football games on the campus of the University of
> >Mississippi"
> >
> >OXFORD, Miss. =97 Perhaps there isn=E2=80=99t a word for the ritualizzed=
>  pregame
> >revelry on the University of Mississippi campus.
> =E2=80=9CTailgating=E2=80=
> =9D certainly
> >does not do it justice. It might be a gathering of football fans before a
> >game, but it hardly resembles those celebrated scenes in Green Bay and
> >Kansas City, which are modest by comparison.
> >
> >For one, there are the $71,000 portable toilets. And then there=E2=80=99s=
>  this
> >fall=E2=80=99s $750,000 university budget for the quintessentially
> Southern=
>  marvel
> >known as the Grove. The price tags, and the orchestration, just keep
> >getting grander.
> >
> >=E2=80=9CWe want to put on the dog here,=E2=80=9D one fan said, using=
>  regional vernacular
> >for =E2=80=9Cover the top.=E2=80=9D
> >
> >***
> >
> >I'm pretty sure that my mother used the expression, and she was an
> old-time
> >New England sort.  The OED at least agrees that it's not limited to
> >Mississippi.  I take it that it wasn't known to the reporter, though.
> >  *P26. * *colloq.* (orig. *U.S.*). to put on (the) dog    : to make a
> >stylish or flashy display, to assume pretentious airs.
> >1865   in J. S. McKee *Throb of Drums* (1973) 216   We..go out on grand
> >reviews..and put on a D=97D sight of Dog generally.
> >
> >1924   W. J. Locke *Coming of Amos* xii. 171,   I don't want to put on
> dog,
> >but the Lord didn't give me physical strength for nothing.
> >1926   W. J. Locke *Old Bridge* ii. v. 74   Young Blake puts on dog and
> >condescends to take the order.
> >1940   P. G. Wodehouse *Eggs, Beans & Crumpets* 48   An editor's
> unexampled
> >opportunities for putting on dog and throwing his weight about.
> >1962   =E2=80=98A. Gilbert=E2=80=99 *No Dust in Attic* xiv. 190   Matron=
>  put on a lot of
> >dog about the hospital's responsibility.
> >2003   *N.Y. Times* (National ed.) 2 Feb. ix. 8/5,   I abhor the social
> >stuff... I'm not good at putting on the dog. It's so tiring.
> >
> >Another expression in the article, probably not coined by the speaker
> >quoted:
> >"The tents themselves can be fashion statements. Some fans hire interior
> >decorators. One tent on the Walk of Champions (the Grove=E2=80=99s Main=
>  Street) is
> >painted with zebra stripes. One of its owners is Jane Foster, a converted
> >Mississippi State fan. She brings in a rock band once a year.
> >=E2=80=9CWe never lose a party here at Ole Miss,=E2=80=9D she said."
> >
> >GAT
> >--
> >George A. Thompson
> >The Guy Who Still Looks Stuff Up in Books.
> >Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
> >Univ. Pr., 1998..
> >
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