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

[Mark Mandel]

Garson: as ever, resourceful & reliable.

MAM

On Tue, Nov 23, 2021, 12:32 AM ADSGarson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com>
wrote:

> 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
>

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