A dog’s life
It’s a dog’s life.
IT SEEMS like the phrase, for the younger generation, has taken on a new meaning from what was originally intended. So I thought best to revisit the origin of the expression, to explain what it really means. (from World Wide Words, Copyright © Michael Quinion, 1996–. )
Q: From Stephen P Goldman: Can you shed light on the meaning and origin of it’s a dog’s life? Those of us over 50 seem to use to suggest the need to accept the existential fact that things are hard; but in the under-50 set, the idea is that dogs have it easy, and so it’s a dog’s life equates to ‘how cushy’!
A: It certainly seems that the phrase has become more ambiguous than it once was, though I’ve not come across many examples myself of its use as a description of a pampered existence. Most of our expressions that include dog are old enough to be based in times when dogs were not cosseted, but were kept as watchdogs or hunting animals, not as pets. They often weren’t allowed in the house, but were kept in kennels, fed scraps, worked hard, and often died young. So going to the dogs, dog tired, to die like a dog, dog’s dinner, dogsbody, dog eat dog, and a dog’s life all refer to a state of affairs best avoided. Specifically, a dog’s life is first recorded in the sixteenth century and seems to have remained in the language with the sense of “a life of misery, or of miserable subserviency” ever since. I’d hate to lose it myself.
So dear readers, to be clear, the expression does not mean comfortable. It means an abject and mis- erable existence.
Wh y did I think about all things dogs all of a sudden? Well, as some of you may have guessed, it has all to do with the brouhaha over the dog- killing incident in the movie “Oro,” and how it has spawned a multitude of reactions from all sectors of Philippine society. Many right-thinking citizens were indignant, and who would not be? After all, in this dog’s day and age, canines are treated like man’s best friends that they are – for the most part, at least. In the developed world, especially, to be a dog means to be sheltered and pampered, to live the life that may even be better than a human’s in some parts of the world, including the Philipines. And herein lies the rub, in other words. It seems like some of the so-called animal lovers who raised a storm over “Oro,” and many of them prominent ones including former presidential candidate Grace Poe, were very quick to voice their anger over one dog, but spoke nary a whisper about the over 6,000 victims of the war on drugs. Seems a little out- of-whack, one might think?
But it is true. Some even justified their silence by saying that they did not want to be “political,” and thus chose to remain silent on the issue of EJK. But on animal rights, they chose to be “political,” and took the side of animal rights. Okay, there is something definitely not right going on here. It is not okay to be “political” and speak about EJK, but it is ok to be “political” to complain about animal rights! Now this is definitely not OK!
Not in any liberal universe has animal rights and welfare ever been equal to its human counterpart. So those who were outraged and spoke up about the killing of a dog, have no moral leg to stand on when they choose not to say anything about EJK. I’m sorry, but there is just no equivocation about this. Politically correct or not, I will dare say that this is madness in the extreme.
Now it may well be that people are supporters of the current administration, and hence their silence on EJK. But this just makes it even more problematic. Because to favor political expediency over human rights is simply inhuman and inhumane in the extreme. And we certainly don’t need the murder of a dog to tell us that in our country today, many of us are living a dog’s life!
Wishing our readers all the prosperity of the coming year!