[Ads-l] see a man about a horse or dog

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

Way back in June 2011 a thread was initiated about "see a man about a
dog". The message featured an 1865 citation together with links to
pertinent articles at World Wide Words and Wikipedia.
http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2011-June/110247.html

Word Histories has an article now (posted in 2017)
https://wordhistories.net/2017/11/09/see-man-about-dog/

Bill Mullins mentioned the variant "see a man about a mule".
http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2011-June/110255.html

Joel S. Berson started a thread focused on "see a man about a horse"
http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2011-June/110262.html

I posted an 1891 citation for "see a man about a horse"
http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2011-June/110285.html

Garson

On Mon, Nov 22, 2021 at 11:56 PM David Daniel <dad at coarsecourses.com> wrote:
>
> Going back to the 1950s when I was a kid, my dad would say he had to "see a
> man about a horse" when going to the bathroom. Thus, of course, I have spent
> my whole life with that in my going-to-the-bathroom repertoire. But an Irish
> friend of mine, when in the same situation, says "see a man about a dog."
> We've had some humorous exchanges over the "correctness" of the two
> versions, so I checked them out. Both get a similar number of Google hits
> (horse - 679,000, dog - 721,000), but many sources claim it is British
> usage. Yet there was my dad, born and raised in Indiana, saying it on a
> regular basis back in the 1950s and onward. It's possible he picked it up in
> England in WWII, but I have no way of knowing. Does anyone out there have
> any experience with the expression or info about which side or sides of the
> pond it came from?
> DAD
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org