"Is the last dog hung yet?"
bi...@home.com
does it come from?
My mother-in-law who is in her 90's uses it. She says she learned it
from her grandfather.
Thanks
B. Palleschi
Alex Chernavsky
>Can anyone I dentify this expression ["Is the last dog hung yet?"]?
>What does it mean and where does it come from?
>
>My mother-in-law who is in her 90's uses it. She says she learned
>it from her grandfather.
Does your mother-in-law use the expression when she's hanging dogs?
Yikes -- perhaps you should contact the ASPCA (American Association for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals). On the other hand, being a staunch cat
person, I can see your mother-in-law's (mother's-in-law?) point -- we can't
rest until the very last dog is hung.
Seriously, though -- if you could provide some context, it might make it
easier to decipher the meaning of the expression.
I ran a Google search, but it didn't turn up any hits.
--
Alex Chernavsky
al...@astrocyte-design.com
Robert E. Lewis
>
> Can anyone I dentify this expression? What does it mean and where
> does it come from?
>
> My mother-in-law who is in her 90's uses it. She says she learned it
> from her grandfather.
>
>
> B. Palleschi
I've never heard it, and can only suggest it's related to
"hangdog," meaning a miserable or despicable person - I've
only heard that used in the phrase, "hangdog expression,"
meaning that a person looked very unhappy.
How does your mother-in-law use it? Could it be used to in
a context that means, "Is everybody unhappy?" Or in the way
some people will say, when everyone is miserable after an
argument or somesuch, "Is everybody satisfied?"
-- Robert
Michael Cargal
[About "has the last dog been hung?]
> Can anyone I dentify this expression? What does it mean and where
> does it come from?
>
> My mother-in-law who is in her 90's uses it. She says she learned it
> from her grandfather.
I'm familiar with an expression "until the last dog is hung," which
means roughly "until the cows come home" or "until the fat lady
sings."
A web search found 500 examples of "until the last dog is hung,"
including the following url
http://www.shu.ac.uk/web-admin/phrases/bulletin_board/4/messages/1123.html
which says the following:
"From the "Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins" by William
and Mary Morris (HarperCollins, New York, 1977, 1988): "until the last
dog is hung – The earliest appearance of this phrase in print that we
have been able to locate is in a novel by Stewart Edward White. Called
‘The Blazed Trail,’ it was published in 1902 and contains this line:
‘They were loyal. It was a point of honor with them to stay ‘until the
last dog was hung.’ White spent much of his early life on the
frontier, first in the West, later in the Hudson Bay country. We would
hazard the guess that the original ‘dogs’ hung were of the human
species and that the reference is to the kind of vigilante lynchings
known as ‘necktie parties’ in the early West. Nowadays, of course, the
expression is most often heard in reference to the inevitable two or
three people at every cocktail party who hang around everlastingly --
‘until the last dog is hung’ and the host shows them the door."
--
Michael Cargal mhca...@home.com
Robert Lipton
Michael Cargal wrote:
SNIP
>
> "From the "Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins" by William
> and Mary Morris (HarperCollins, New York, 1977, 1988): "until the last
> dog is hung – The earliest appearance of this phrase in print that we
> have been able to locate is in a novel by Stewart Edward White. Called
> ‘The Blazed Trail,’ it was published in 1902 and contains this line:
> ‘They were loyal. It was a point of honor with them to stay ‘until the
> last dog was hung.’ White spent much of his early life on the
> frontier, first in the West, later in the Hudson Bay country. We would
> hazard the guess that the original ‘dogs’ hung were of the human
> species and that the reference is to the kind of vigilante lynchings
> known as ‘necktie parties’ in the early West. Nowadays, of course, the
> expression is most often heard in reference to the inevitable two or
> three people at every cocktail party who hang around everlastingly --
> ‘until the last dog is hung’ and the host shows them the door."
This puts me in mind of the Dead Dog parties at sf conventions: late
Sunday, after everyone but thepoeple who work breakdown have left, the
unused refreshments from other parties are donated to the Dead Dog
Party.
Bob
bi...@home.com
we she is ready to leave.
Thanks,
Bill Palleschi