who came up with the phrase my dog ate my homework

Where Did The Phrase “The Dog Ate My Homework” Come From?

Dogs are known as man’s best friend. Dogs keep us safe, are hard workers … and can provide a handy excuse in a pinch. Maybe that’s why versions of the classic expression the dog ate my homework have been around for hundreds of years.

Today, the dog ate my homework is used as a stock example of the kind of silly excuses schoolchildren give for why their work isn’t finished. Very rarely do people say, “the dog ate my homework” and expect it to be taken literally; they use the expression as an example of a typically flimsy excuse.

So where did the phrase come from?

Forrest Wickman, a writer for Slate , describes the legend of the 6th-century Saint Ciarán of Clonmacnoise as the alleged first recorded “the dog ate my homework” story. According to the tale, Saint Ciarán had a tame young fox that would take his writings to his master for him. One day, the fox grew up and decided to eat the leather strap binding the writings together instead. Still, this tale is more Garden-of-Eden parable and less terrible schoolchild excuse.

The notion that dogs will eat just about anything, including paper, turns up in lots of stories over the centuries. An example comes from The Humors of Whist , published in 1808 in Sporting Magazine . In the story, the players are sitting around playing cards when one of them remarks that their companion would have lost the game had the dog not eaten the losing card. Good boy.

Some attribute the creation of the dog ate my homework to a joke that was going around at the beginning of the 20th century. In a tale found as far back as an 1894 memoir by Anglican priest Samuel Reynolds Hole, a preacher gives a shortened version of a sermon because a dog got into his study and ate some of the pages he had written. However, the clerk loved it because they had been wanting the preacher to shorten his sermons for years.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary , the first example of the dog ate my homework excuse in print can be found in a speech given by retiring headmaster James Bewsher in 1929 and published in the Manchester Guardian : “It is a long time since I have had the excuse about the dog tearing up the arithmetic homework.” The way this comment is phrased suggests that the whole dog ate my homework story had been around for some time before it was put in print.

When was the word homework created?

But in order for a dog to eat homework specifically, homework had to be invented (oh, and how we wish it hadn’t been). True, the word homework , as in what we call today housework , appears as early as 1653. But homework , as in school exercises to be done at home, isn’t found until 1852. Once we had homework , it was only a matter of time before the dog was accused of eating it.

How we use this phrase now

No matter the origin, sometime in the 1950s, the expression became set as the dog ate my homework . This inspired any number of riffs on the theme, like my cow ate my homework or my brother ate my homework . In the 1960s, the dog ate my homework continued to gain popularity. The expression popped up a couple times in politics over the years, like when President Reagan said to reporters in 1988, “I had hoped that we had marked the end of the ‘dog-ate-my-homework’ era of Congressional budgetry … but it was not to be.”

It seems unlikely that the dog ate my homework was ever used consistently or frequently by actual schoolchildren. In fact, it’s the unlikeliness of the story that makes it so funny and absurd as a joke. Instead, teachers and authority figures appear to have cited the dog ate my homework many times over the years as such a bad excuse they can’t believe students are really using it.

In the 21st century, students don’t spend as much time working with physical pen and paper as they once did. That may contribute to the decline in the use of the phrase. So, maybe soon we’ll see a new equally absurd phrase pop up. Come on Zoomers, you’ve got this.

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early history of the phrase ‘the dog ate my homework’

The phrase the dog ate my homework and variants are used as, or denote, an unconvincing or far-fetched excuse: – for failing to hand in school homework, and, by extension: – for any failure to do or produce what was expected.

The earliest mention that I have found of a person blaming a dog for their own unpreparedness is from More Memories: Being Thoughts about England spoken in America (London: Edward Arnold, 1894), by the English Anglican priest Samuel Reynolds Hole (1819-1904):

There is one adjunct of a sermon, which nearly all who hear admire, and which all who preach may possess if they please—brevity. Unhappily, the speakers, whom this virtue would most gracefully become, do not seem to be aware of its existence; like Nelson, they put the telescope to the blind eye , when signals are made to “cease firing.” They decline to notice manifest indications of weariness, yawns, sighs, readjustment of limbs, ostentatious inspection of watches; and they seem rather to be soothed than offended by soft sounds of slumber, as though it were music from La Somnambula. One of these tedious preachers went away for his holiday, and the clergyman who took his duties in his absence apologized one Sunday to the clerk in the vestry, when the service was over, for the shortness of his sermon: a dog had been in his study, and torn out some of the pages. “Oh, sir,” said the clerk, a bright beam of hope on his countenance, “do you think that you could spare our vicar a pup ?”

This story has often been repeated, and elaborated on, since 1894. For example, the following version is from the President’s Address , in the Proceedings of the Forty-second Annual Meeting of the Fire Underwriters’ Association of the Northwest Held at the Hotel La Salle, Chicago , Illinois, October 4 th and 5 th , 1911 (Printed by order of the Association, 1911):

In my efforts to make my annual address as brief as possible it reminds me of a Scotch story. Donald McPherson was a leading member and also a leading deacon in an old church in Scotland, whose old minister had for many years inflicted on his congregation very long and tiresome sermons. One Sunday the old minister was invited to fill the pulpit of a church in an adjoining parish, and Donald’s congregation, thinking this was a good chance to get a much younger man, got one to fill the pulpit for that day. After the services, and as the young minister and Donald were walking home together, the minister naturally asked: “Well, Mr. McPherson, how did you enjoy the sermon?” Donald replied: “Well, minister,” he said, “I think it sounded kind of disconnected, but I liked it awfully well because it was brief.” The young minister was a little frustrated at the frank expression or criticism and replied: “Well, Mr. McPherson, there was perhaps a reason for it being brief and disconnected.” Donald replied: “And what was the reason?” “Well, sir,” the minister stated, “in coming to church this morning, I had occasion to change my manuscript from one pocket to the other, and while doing so, unfortunately, a sudden gust of wind came along and blew several of the pages down the street, and a dog seeing the flying papers got after them, and really, Mr. McPherson, what he didn’t destroy he practically eat up.” Donald, on hearing the excuse, replied: “And so, Mr. Minister, the reason your sermon was brief was because a dog ate it.” “Well,” replied the minister, “yes, Mr. McPherson, that is practically true.” “Well, well,” says Donald, “I will tell you, I am willing to forgive you, and so is all of the congregation, if you will only send a pup of that dog to our old minister.”

The earliest recorded mention of the excuse consisting for a schoolchild in telling that a dog ate their homework is from a speech that, on his retirement from the headmastership, James Bewsher gave on Tuesday 30 th July 1929 to the pupils of Colet Court, London—speech published in The Manchester Guardian (Manchester, Lancashire , England) of Wednesday 31 st July 1929 (Bewsher remarked that the phrase had long been in usage):

“I think that the boys are no worse than they used to be,” said Mr. Bewsher, “in fact I think sometimes they are better. It is a long time since I have had the excuse about the dog tearing up the arithmetic homework . (Laughter.) We have trained the young boys to accept some responsibility and to achieve the power of rising to the occasion when crises happen.”

Frank Fletcher (1870-1954), headmaster from 1911 to 1935 of Charterhouse, a ‘ public school ’ (i.e. a private fee-paying secondary school) in Godalming, Surrey , mentioned a similar excuse in After Many Days: A Schoolmaster’s Memories (London: Robert Hale and Company, 1937):

He kept a dog, and taught us Greek prose and verse. The two facts are connected in my memory by his occasional apology when he got behindhand with his work, “I’m very sorry, but my dog’s eaten your Greek prose .”

In American English, the phrase must have been already popular in the mid-1950s, since the final exclamation probably alludes punningly to it in the following instalment of Etta Kett , a comic strip by Paul Robinson (1898-1974), published in the Daily Intelligencer Journal (Lancaster, Pennsylvania , USA) of Wednesday 26 th December 1956:

Etta Kett 'you ate my homework' - Daily Intelligencer Journal (Lancaster, Pennsylvania) - 26 December 1956

– Mom!! Where’s that fudge pie I whipped up? – With boys around, that’s a silly question! – Oh, no!! Not my whole pie !!! – After the way I slaved! – You dizzy creeps!! I baked that to take to domestic science class tomorrow!! – You ate my homework !!

A similar punning allusion to the phrase occurs in Restaurant School: What Cooks? Students Do , by William Boldenweck, published in the San Francisco Examiner (San Francisco, California, USA) of Monday 12 th December 1960:

“ My little brother ate my homework .” The excuse has not been tried yet, but it could happen in City College of San Francisco’s hotel and restaurant course, a unique series of classes in which students cook and serve 5,000 meals each school day, punch a time clock and in which part of the “final” is a semi-annual banquet.

A yet similar punning allusion occurs in the following instalment of Blondie , by Murat Bernard ‘Chic’ Young (1901-1973), published in several North-American newspapers on Friday 26 th August 1966—for example in The Leader-Post (Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada ):

Blondie 'Daddy ate my homework' - The Leader-Post (Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada) - 26 August 1966

– What happened to the cupcakes I made for my cooking class? – I ate those cupcakes – Boo-hoo, Mommy – Daddy ate my homework !

Donna Schwab mentioned a variant of the phrase in Underestimation of “Culturally Deprived” Youth , published in New Teachers in Urban Schools: An Inside View ( New York : Random House, 1968), by Richard Wisniewski:

Any teacher gullible enough to fall for the inevitable story, “ my little sister ate my homework ,” without demanding a new version of the same, deserves the reputation she will soon have to live with.

Why Do We Say “The Dog Ate My Homework”?

The history of the delinquent schoolchild’s favorite excuse..

Did this sad Lab eat your homework?

iStockphoto.

Viacom announced on Monday that Mitt Romney had declined to appear on Nickelodeon’s Kids Pick the President special this year, citing time constraints. President Obama’s camp pounced on Romney’s decision, saying, “Kids demand details … ‘The dog ate my homework’ just doesn’t cut it when you’re running for president. ” When did “my dog ate my homework” become known as schoolchildren’s favorite excuse?

The 1970s. Delinquent schoolchildren and adults have been blaming their shortcomings on their pets for more than a century, but it wasn’t until the 1970s that “my dog ate my homework” came to be considered the No. 1 likely story. One of the first sad sacks who was said to blame his dog for his own ill-preparedness was a priest. In this anecdote, which appeared as early as 1905, a clergyman pulls his clerk aside after a service to ask him whether his sermon seemed long enough. The clerk assures him that it was very nice, “just the right length,” and the priest is relieved. “I am very glad to hear you say that,” he says, “because just before I started to come here my dog got hold of my sermon and ate some of the leaves .” The story was repeated again and again . The first citation of the excuse in the Oxford English Dictionary is a 1929 article from the Manchester Guardian , which reads, “It is a long time since I have had the excuse about the dog tearing up the arithmetic homework.” In Bel Kaufman’s best-selling 1965 novel Up the Down Staircase , a list of students’ excuses for not having their homework includes “ My dog went on my homework ” and “ My dog chewed it up .” Even in 1965, however, it was still just another excuse.

“My dog ate my homework” became known as the quintessential far-fetched excuse in the next decade, when the phrase was used over and over . In a 1976 account of the Watergate tapes, E.C. Kennedy describes listening to President Nixon “ working on the greatest American excuse since the dog ate my homework .” A 1977 article from Alaska’s Daily News-Miner describes the difficulty students faced in coming up with a new excuse since “ ‘My dog ate my term paper’ is no longer acceptable .”

The excuse was alluded to more and more throughout the 1980s. A 1982 Time magazine column on excuses suggested that “The dog ate my homework is a favorite with schoolchildren,” while a 1987 New York Times column about how students were starting to blame malfunctioning computers and printers quoted one teacher as saying she recently received “ a note from a student’s mother saying the dog ate his homework .” Even the president picked up on the trend: When Congress pushed spending approval to the last minute in 1988, Ronald Reagan complained to reporters, “ I had hoped that we had marked the end of the ‘dog-ate-my-homework’ era of Congressional budgetry … but it was not to be .” It was all over television, with references to the excuse on shows like The Simpsons and Full House . By 1989, the narrator of Saved by the Bell theme was singing, “ And the dog ate all my homework last night .”

The phrase continued to grow more popular. Between 1990 and 2000, the New York Times wrote articles with headlines such as “ Beyond ‘Dog Ate My Homework’ ” and “ Homework Help Sites (Or, the Dog Ate My U.R.L.) ,” while The New Yorker described one criminal’s accounts of his wrongdoings as having “a decided my-dog-ate-my-homework quality.” Children’s books tried to capitalize on the trend with titles like A Dinosaur Ate My Homework , Aliens Ate My Homework , Godzilla Ate My Homework , and My Teacher Ate My Homework , daring to use the term to promote reading and education. Such titles have continued into the 2000s, but in recent years the phrase seems to finally be losing steam .

Bonus Explainer: An Obama spokesperson also said, “ It’s no surprise Romney decided to play hookey .” Why do we call cutting school “playing hookey”? To play hookey began as an Americanism in the 19 th century. The earliest known citation comes from 1848, from John Russell Bartlett’s Dictionary of Americanisms , where it was said to mean “to play truant” and noted to be “ a term used among schoolboys, chiefly in the State of New York .” Word historians usually suggest that it’s from to hook it meaning to run away , a term as old as the Revolutionary War. However, others have proposed that it might derive from the Dutch expression hoekje spelen , the Dutch expression for “hide and seek”—especially since playing hooky emerged in New York during a time when it had a larger Dutch population.

Got a question about today’s news? Ask the Explainer .

Explainer thanks Barry Popik, Jesse Sheidlower of the Oxford English Dictionary, and Ben Zimmer of the Visual Thesaurus and Vocabulary.com .

StarTribune

Where did that doggone phrase come from.

When did "my dog ate my homework" become known as schoolchildren's favorite excuse?

Delinquent schoolchildren and adults have been blaming their shortcomings on their pets for more than a century, but it wasn't until the 1970s that "my dog ate my homework" came to be considered the No. 1 likely story.

One of the first sad sacks who was said to blame his dog for his own ill-preparedness was a priest. In this anecdote, which appeared as early as 1905, a clergyman pulls his clerk aside after a service to ask him whether his sermon seemed long enough. The clerk assures him that it was very nice, "just the right length," and the priest is relieved. "I am very glad to hear you say that," he says, "because just before I started to come here my dog got hold of my sermon and ate some of the leaves." The story was repeated again and again.

The first citation of the excuse in the Oxford English Dictionary is a 1929 article from the Manchester Guardian, which reads, "It is a long time since I have had the excuse about the dog tearing up the arithmetic homework." In Bel Kaufman's best-selling 1965 novel "Up the Down Staircase," a list of students' excuses for not having their homework includes "My dog went on my homework" and "My dog chewed it up." Even in 1965, however, it was still just another excuse.

"My dog ate my homework" became known as the quintessential far-fetched excuse in the next decade, when the phrase was used over and over. In a 1976 account of the Watergate tapes, E.C. Kennedy describes listening to President Richard Nixon "working on the greatest American excuse since the dog ate my homework." A 1977 article from Alaska's Daily News-Miner describes the difficulty students faced in coming up with a new excuse since "'My dog ate my term paper' is no longer acceptable."

The excuse was alluded to more throughout the 1980s. A 1982 Time magazine column on excuses suggested that "the dog ate my homework is a favorite with schoolchildren," while a 1987 New York Times column about how students were starting to blame malfunctioning computers and printers quoted one teacher as saying she recently received "a note from a student's mother saying the dog ate his homework."

Even the president picked up on the trend: When Congress pushed spending approval to the last minute in 1988, Ronald Reagan complained to reporters, "I had hoped that we had marked the end of the 'dog-ate-my-homework' era of congressional budgetry ... but it was not to be." After that, the phrase was all over television, including shows such as "The Simpsons" and "Full House."

Between 1990 and 2000, the phrase continued to grow in popularity. The New York Times wrote articles with headlines such as "Beyond 'Dog Ate My Homework' " and "Homework Help Sites (Or, the Dog Ate My U.R.L.)." The New Yorker described one criminal's accounts of his wrongdoings as having "a decided my-dog-ate-my-homework quality."

Not to be outdone, children's books tried to capitalize on the trend, with titles like "A Dinosaur Ate My Homework," "Aliens Ate My Homework," "Godzilla Ate My Homework" and even "My Teacher Ate My Homework."

While such book titles have continued into the 2000s, the phrase seems to finally be losing steam.

That means schoolkids will have to come up with a new, improved excuse.

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Can the dog still eat your homework.

It may be the best known bad excuse for being unprepared: "The Dog Ate My Homework." But where does the phrase come from and how has it changed over the years? Weekend Edition host Scott Simon talks with Forrest Wickman, a reporter with Slate Magazine , who has the answers.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

the dog ate my homework

English [ edit ]

Phrase [ edit ].

2011 May 6, Damian Carrington, “Environment action delays blamed on 'dog ate my homework' excuses”, in The Guardian ‎ [1] , archived from the original on 2022-08-24 : Their reasons for missed deadlines are mostly of the " dog ate my homework variety" including such easily foreseeable events as yesterday's elections and that the badger culling policy is "difficult and sensitive".
2014 September 12, Oscar Webb, quoting Donald Campbell, “UK Government Changes Its Line On Diego Garcia Flight Logs Sought in Rendition Row - Again”, in VICE ‎ [2] , archived from the original on 2022-12-05 : The government's excuses for Diego Garcia's missing records are getting increasingly confused and desperate. Ministers could hardly be less credible if they simply said ' the dog ate my homework .'
2017 February 18, Mia Berman, “Go West-minster, Young Mastiff”, in HuffPost ‎ [3] , archived from the original on 2019-04-09 : Our immune system's weak; we've been sick as a dog, missing work and school, resorting to " the dog ate my homework " excuses amidst these frigid dog days of winter.

References [ edit ]

English lemmas
English phrases
English multiword terms
English terms with quotations

My dog ate my homework

Posted by Steven on March 28, 2010 at 19:37

Where did the phrase "My dog ate my homework" come from?

The Dog Ate My Homework

The first known time that anyone used the “dog ate my homework” excuse was, according to writing expert and educationist, Christoper Simpson, in 1835. The student who was said to have uttered the now famous explanation for the absence of homework was Henry Pennywhistle, but other sources attribute the words to a story about a Welsh minister in 1905, and yet another source points to Saint Tyron who in the fifth century found a fox with whom he made friends. At some point, the fox ate his psalms, but “the fox ate my scriptures,” doesn’t quite have the same ring. Whatever. The quote spawned a cottage industry of creative excuses, many of which became children’s books (“Godzilla Ate My Homework,” “A Dinosaur Ate My Homework,” “Aliens Ate My Homework,” “My Teacher Ate My Homework,” and so on).

We know that dogs sometimes do eat things they ought not to, something the author, John Steinbeck” found out when he reportedly found the first draft of his novel, Of Mice and Men , chewed up by his dog. Steinbeck was known, of course, for his Poodle, “Charley,” who accompanied him on a criss-cross journey “in search of America.” The book resulted in Travels with Charley: In Search of America, though the journey was in the 1960s, and Of Mice and Men was published in 1937, so we think the Poodle was innocent. In fact, it was Steinbeck’s dog, Max, who chomped on the first draft of the classic. Steinbeck owned many dogs in his life, including an Airedale Terrier, but Max’s breed remains a mystery to us.

Image: “Dog Ate my Homework” is available on a t-shirt and hoodie here.

A Dog Ate My Homework

Edit locked.

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/calvin_homework.png

"I am telling you! A big, mean, homework eating dog attacked me and ate my report!" — Numbuh 5 , Codename: Kids Next Door

Basically, this is any child character explaining to their teacher why they haven't done his homework. This will be either a lie, which may or may not be believed, or a Cassandra Truth . If it is the latter, expect them to also bring in the evidence proving their case (such as moist bits from homework, or even the animal itself). The most common variant involves a dog, but other animals can be used as well.

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Noggin's promo for Sponk! where Bob tries to tell his teacher Mrs. Kralley this.
In Futakoi , Nozomu is always wary whenever the goat is around when he's doing his homework. No one believes Nozomu because the little bastard is nice to everyone except him.
Inverted in Kokuhaku Game , where the dog attempts to do the homework.
In Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf : Joys of Seasons episode 36, Sparky and Weslie both have their homework stolen by Wolffy, and Paddi, who was too lazy to actually do the work, comes up with the excuse that Wolffy also stole his homework. Mr. Slowy notices they're all using the same excuse and doesn't believe them , instead threatening to punish them all if they don't hand in their homework.
Cards Against Humanity features a question with this phrase and an empty spot in which to substitute something else for "dog". Naturally, given the nature of the game, this is very likely to enter the realm of Refuge in Audacity .
Archie Comics : One Jughead comic's cover gag involves Jughead not submitting any homework because he ate it. Miss Grundy is in complete disbelief over his excuse. Grundy : Let me get this straight: You ate your own homework ? Jughead : I can't help it! All those word problems were about food!
The Shea Fontana DC Super Hero Girls tie-in graphic novel Summer Olympus ends with Beast Boy using this excuse after seeing he can't top Wonder Woman's essay on what was done during summer vacation, with the twist that his dog is actually himself in dog form and he eats his own homework.
Goof Troop : A Disney Adventures comic has PJ offering this excuse for his homework — although he has the sense to bring Chainsaw, still attached to said homework, with him.
Viz has Playtime Fontayne use this excuse to explain his failure to deliver a bunch of monthly reports to head office.
One strip has Nate eat bacon while at the bus stop because he missed breakfast. The bacon grease gets on his homework, local dog Spitsy smells it, and you can guess what happened from there. Nate: Wacky thing happened at the bus stop this morning... Mrs. Godfrey: I smell bacon.
In a strip after that, Nate puts his homework in his backpack to keep it from happening again. When Spitsy gets near, he throws the bag away from the dog and shoos him away...only for the bag to land in a garbage can, then tossed into a garbage truck and crushed.
A third strip in the arc has Nate make Francis film his homework, since Nate is aware at this point something will happen to it. Sure enough, it accidentally falls into the sewer, but Francis still has the tape... which is then snatched and destroyed by a rogue chimpanzee .
Citizen Dog : Fergus the dig actually does eat Maggie’s homework. He has to accompany her to school to back up the story and prove she isn’t lying.
One Close to Home strip has a student claiming his dog ate his term paper. The dog is attached to his arm.
The Far Side : One cartoon has a class full of dogs with the teacher asking, "Well, here we go again... did anyone here not eat his or her homework on the way to school?"
Subverted when Elizabeth tries to get Farley to eat her homework. He refuses to touch it.
Later, Michael successfully gets Farley to eat his homework, but he has to pour bacon grease on it first.
FoxTrot : Jason's iguana Quincy has eaten his and his siblings' homework, causing them to either force Jason to fix up their homework or tell Jason off for feeding the iguana the wrong homework assignment. In one strip, Peter collects the bits of homework left by Quincy to take to his teacher to prove it actually happened.
Grand Avenue : In the October 6, 2014 strip, Michael has to tell his teacher that "My grandma ate my homework." For once, it's a logical explanation: his homework was an experiment involving rock candy.
A dog sits in a classroom full of human kids saying: "I couldn't eat the homework because the kid who usually sits here did not do it."
A dog teacher asks her dog students: "Did anyone's dad not eat their homework?"
A kid brought an X-Ray machine to class to show the homework inside the dog.
Luann : In one series of strips, Luann is babysitting while writing a report that is due the next day. Unfortunately, the baby gets a hold of the report, rips it up, and feeds it to Luann's dog. When Luann tries to explain what happened to her teacher the next day, he just laughs his head off at Luann thinking she's trying the "a dog ate my homework" excuse.
Madam & Eve : This is Thandi's go-to excuse for not doing her homework.
This happened a couple of times in Nancy (at least in the Guy Gilchrist-run). It usually involved Nancy bringing her dog, Poochie, to school with her to present it to her teacher as "proof" of what happened.
One arc has Snoopy playing World War I Flying Ace and pretend that Sally's book report is sensitive papers. She chases him and he swallows the report to keep it from falling in "enemy hands". So she takes him to school the next day and takes him up in front of the class. Sally: I might have a little trouble reading it. *shakes Snoopy* I SAID...I might have a little trouble reading it!
A 1995 strip has Rerun planning on using this excuse the first time he's assigned homework in grade school. Lucy points out that they don't have a dog, so he says he'll borrow one. Snoopy concedes that he might do it if he writes on something actually edible. Rerun: We don't have homework in kindergarten. Lucy: I know. You're lucky. Rerun: When we do, I'll tell the teacher my dog ate my homework. Lucy: You don't have a dog. Rerun: I'll borrow a dog. Snoopy: Write your homework on a doughnut, and I'll eat it.
Inverted in another comic where, instead of eating Charlie Brown's homework, Snoopy actually writes it.
Private Eye : One cartoon shows a boy with a tangle of shredded paper, explaining to the teacher that his mum spiralised his homework.
Inverted in a cartoon published in a book of puzzles: a dog is ripping through a pile of papers, and a woman is screaming: "You stupid mutt! How am I supposed to tell my students that my dog ate their homework?"
Red and Rover : Sometimes Red will coax Rover into eating his homework when he's afraid he'll do badly. One case ended with Red cleaning up the mess after Rover couldn't keep down all the edible bribes.
ITS MY LIFE! : "Hey Scot yuo must do are homework an yurs but well eat yurs so you get a bad grad LOL!" My [mad dog] bros sayd an started to pump at me.
Kill la Kill AU : The 17th comic mentions that the two-year old Mako ate Nui's homework because the latter spilled food on it.
The MLP Loops : Loop 201.14 has an unAwake Apple Bloom tearfully and truthfully inform her teacher that (an also unAwake ) "Discord ate my homework, Miss Cheerilee." Cheerilee (with Fluttershy supervising) makes him redo the homework for her, and then some, as punishment.
Oh God, Not Again! : Someone from Harry's year had to turn in their homework in tattered ruins, after the book Hagrid assigned for his class tried to eat it.
Things I Am Not Allowed to Do at the PPC : Rule 304 prohibits teaching pets to eat assignments, under threat of death or being sent on a mission to a truly nasty badfic.
Spider's Web: A Pig's Tale : In an inverted example, to keep his mother from finding out he didn't do his homework, Walt makes up a lie that his homework was busy eating a dog.
102 Dalmatians has an example not related to school. Probation Officer Chloe Simon wants one of her charges, Ewan, to show a pay stub and he says he can't because a dog ate it. Chloe, of course, doesn't believe him and asks if he couldn't come with a better story. He tells one about being abducted by aliens at Picadilly Circus. Ewan eventually shows a photograph of him and his boss at the dog shelter he works at and a drool-covered IOU note he received instead of the pay stub because the shelter is low on funds.
What did the student say to his math teacher after his dog ate part of his homework? "I got 99 problems, but a bitch ate one."
"Bob, where's your homework?" the teacher asked. "My dog ate it," Bob replied. "Do you really expect me to believe that?" the teacher said. "It's true," Bob responded. "I did have to cut it up and mix it into the dog food. But it was eaten."
What did the dog say to his classmate? "Can you help me with my homework? I ate mine."
The Cat Ate My Gymsuit : Marcy uses the title statement as one of her excuses for not participating in PE class.
Thief of Time mentions that no dog dares to eat homework given to Susan's students. Instead, they sniff it out and carefully bring it to her class if the kid forgot. She's like that.
It's mentioned that at Unseen University, your homework can eat your dog.
Family Skeleton Mysteries : Discussed and subverted in the third book, Georgia needs an excuse to get in touch with a former co-worker (in order to get information on the murder victim), and decides to open the conversation by asking him for copies of the lesson plans they'd worked out together. She says that "I couldn't claim that Byron note Her daughter Madison's dog. had eaten my homework, but nobody argued with a hard disk crash."
Rod Allbright Alien Adventures : Book 1 is titled Aliens Ate My Homework (and they really did, too - one of them got hungry, and didn't realize the piece of paper he was snacking on was a math assignment due that day). It doesn't end well, but the aliens appreciate how the apparent Refuge in Audacity helped cover for the other weird things that were happening.
Roys Bedoys : In “Stop Blaming People, Roys Bedoys!”, when Roys starts blaming others for why he didn’t do his homework, Truly jokingly asks if his dog (Charlie) ate it. Roys says, “Maybe he did”.
Schooled in Magic : At Wizarding School , it's more common for the excuse to be "my homework ate my dog." It's still a cliche.
The Trouble With Demons : A student tells his teacher that a Krog (a lesser demon that eats paper and ink) ate his homework. After a thorough quizzing from the teacher (who is the head of the demonology department) on the alleged Krog, the excuse is accepted.
Batwoman (2019) : Lampshaded. Kate Kane in her Batwoman disguise finds herself making out with her ex-girlfriend Crow Security officer Sophie Moore, which is a bad idea for a whole lot of reasons . She goes to break up with her only for them to end up smooching again before events are interrupted by Sophie's homophobic mother paying a visit . The next day Kate gives an unconvincing explanation as to why things didn't go according to plan. Luke Fox says sarcastically, "So, dog ate my breakup?"
Even Stevens : Ren Stevens, when having to be paired up with a Pig, ended up having her homework eaten by the pig. She tries to explain this to her teacher, with predictable results.
Full House : In one episode, the Tanners' newly-acquired puppy Comet eats DJ's book report, but DJ is smart enough to know it won't fly even if it is the truth so she decides to tell her teacher Michelle ate it.
One installment of It's Me or the Dog focuses on a family with kids and a Pomeranian-chihuahua mix with severe resource-guarding issues and a particular fondness for making off with paper. The narrator quips that these may be the only kids in the world who can literally say that the dog ate their homework.
Married... with Children invoked this trope in an episode where Peggy goes Back to School because she didn't pass home economics ( no surprises there ). At a scene, a teacher asks the class to wake Kelly, who quickly responds that her dog ate her homework. Later on, when Peggy is introduced to class, both she and Kelly fall asleep and the teacher asks the class to wake them both, who respond that the dog ate their homework. Later, Al literally eats Peg's homework (a roast rack of lamb).
M*A*S*H : A variant in a season 10 episode— Hawkeye gets in serious trouble because a goat ate the entire payroll (and, naturally, no one believes him; he is charged with stealing it). Later, Hawkeye is finally proved innocent when the goat subsequently eats a general's report on the issue.
Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide : One episode has Ned giving tips on good excuses. He comments that saying a dog ate your homework is a bad excuse... right before a dog eats his homework. The rest of the episode has him trying to find the dog and convince his teacher Mr. Sweeney that he wasn't lying.
Person of Interest : Inverted in a fourth-season episode where Bear eats Finch's students' papers before Finch can grade them.
So Random! : The debut sketch of the apparent Bad Liar Rufus has him insist his dog ate his homework, then clarifies that a monkey took his homework and fed it to his dog. This turns out to be true, weirdly.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine : In " The Nagus ", Nog tries to explain why he hasn't done his homework. The only excuse he comes up with is that "Vulcans stole his homework".
Superhuman Samurai Syber-Squad : In "A Virus Ate My Homework", unlike what the title might suggest, Sam's homework isn't eaten. His little sister paints it over. Fortunately, the emergency caused by the virus makes the students go home earlier, allowing Sam another day to redo the homework.
Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters from Beverly Hills : In one episode, one of the heroes was doing her homework when they've been called into battle. She then took the homework with her, eventually leading to the homework being eaten by the monster. The teacher later sarcastically asked if a dog ate her homework. She answered it was a monster and the teacher took it for sarcasm.
Wizards of Waverly Place : Briefly mentioned in an episode when the Russos adopt a dragon that's been transformed into a beagle. At one point, the dragon dog sets Alex's homework on fire, to which she comments: "The dog burned my homework, that's a new one."
The Wonder Years : In one episode, Kevin has to do a school assignment involving a potato. His new dog eats it, and the teacher reacts in disbelief that his dog ate his homework.
The Unbelievable Truth : Invoked in Holly Walsh's lecture on dogs, where she claims George R.R. Martin's dog ate the manuscript for The Winds of Winter , possibly as a preemptive measure after having seen season 7 of Game of Thrones .
Another Case Solved : The "Comic Calamities" case involves retrieving a rare comic book which, when the player character finds it, is missing a few pages. When you confront the artist about this, he babbles "My hamster ate them! Really!"
Math Rescue : A couple of word problems feature this. One plays this straight with the logical consequence of the student having to redo their homework. The other turns it on its head by having the teacher's dog eat homework that said teacher was grading.
Medieval Cop : This is the talking dog Phil's favorite excuse for missing notes or evidence.
Persona 4 : The main character can eat his little cousin's science project.
Rivals of Aether : In Lovers of Aether , Absa has a problem with her homework actually being eaten. By her .
Forestdale : In a gambit to be excused from gym class, Izabell claims that her Dalmatian friend Dallas ate her gym clothes with a fake letter from her mom as proof. Needless to say, it doesn't work and Dallas calls her out on such blatant stereotyping.
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal , "Homework": "The dog ate my homework" gets a different meaning when the homework was to make a chocolate sculpture.
In the HowToBasic episode "How to Do Homework", Mr. Basic tries to invoke this by giving his homework book to his dog. It doesn't work.
A semi-reoccurring gag in early Monster High webisodes was Clawdeen, a werewolf, blaming her brother for eating her homework.
Connected to the above, Jane notes that one of the obscure dates covered by the Calendar Man in Batman: Arkham City is Saint Roch's Day.
Mentioned in episode 15 of RWBY Chibi when Ruby goes to get Zwei, she tells him "C'mon, let's go eat Weiss' homework!"
The Amazing World of Gumball : Darwin and Gumball said their dad ate their homework. Naturally, no one believes them, and naturally they were right ("I thought it would make me smart! ")
American Dragon: Jake Long : In "Fu and Tell", when Haley brings Fu Dog in to her class's show and tell, one boy asks Fu to eat his homework. Fu obliges, commenting, "Tastes like a D minus."
Angela Anaconda : One episode has Angela's dog actually eat her homework (her mom accidentally spilled bacon grease on it while her dad was looking it over), but of course no one believes her.
Animaniacs : This is a joke waiting to happen when the Warners attend school. Even when it was their first day. Turned out the dog was Wakko . Teacher: Bad dog! Gimme that! Wakko: Grrrr...
Arthur : In one episode, the Brain deliberately flouts several superstitions to show there is nothing in them, then has a terrible streak of bad luck, including having a dog eat his homework, which causes him extra distress because he knows how the report will be received.
Bad Dog : In "Bad Dog Ate My Homework", Penelope spent most of the episode trying to keep Berkeley from eating a hybrid plant that she grew for school.
Beverly Hills Teens : In "The Dog Ate My Homework", the dog belongs to Bianca , and is sent by her deliberately in order to make Larke stay at home instead of competing against her. Also subverted, since for awhile, Larke's own cat is blamed, the homework was on a floppy, and there was no attempt to use the excuse.
Catdog : One episode titled directly after the trope is devoted to the citizens of Nearburg making Dog eat their homework, which Cat exploits for their money. However, when the big one comes where Dog must eat the President's written speech before he has to give it, he becomes sick from his growing crisis of conscious, and Cat is forced to eat it himself. This turns out to be a bad decision as the entire crowd finds the idea of a cat eating homework ludicrous and boo the President off the stage (and back into the clowning business).
ChalkZone : The villain Skrawl forces Penny into siding with him by threatening to have her homework eaten by a dog in "Chalk Queen".
Codename: Kids Next Door : Numbuh Five has a genuine problem of her homework getting eaten every day by a dog she passes by on the way to school. She has enough and decides to take the problem head on. Turns out that it's a rival classmate who can morph into a weredog and eats Five's homework out of spite, and the teacher is in on it, too . And, even then, it's only because Numbuh Five has been helping Numbuh Four with his homework (since he usually does poorly in school.) This turns out to be useful for the KND because it turns out that poorly-done homework actually makes weredogs sick.
Danger Mouse : In DangerMouse on the Orient Express , Penfold loses a valuable document to a hungry fish in a Venice canal. When he's captured by Greenback's agents he readily tells them that a fish ate the document. Nobody believes him.
Dennis the Menace (UK) : In "The Show Mustn't Go On", Dennis claims that he had to feed his homework to a giant paper-eating alien bug to prevent it from destroying Beanotown.
Doug : When the kids are performing in the school talent show, Skeeter plans to play an ocarina he made out of one of the school cafeteria's dinner rolls. He's forced to withdraw from talent show when Roger's cat, Stinky, accidentally eats it. Mr. Dink doesn't believe him. Mr. Dink : Not the old "cat ate my ocarina" excuse. At least be original.
The Emperor's New School has a variant where Yzma plans on forcing Kuzco to give this excuse, and even lampshades on and exploits its Dead Horse status: Kronk : Come on, "A llama ate my homework"? It's the oldest excuse in the book. Yzma : Exactly! It's so old, no one will believe him.
Referenced and narrowly subverted in the George Shrinks episode "Journey to the Centre of the Garden." George and Becky are recording the growth cycle of mung beans, but find their work impeded by birds pecking around. George manages to shoo one off, following it up with a quip: George : Who's gonna believe a bird ate our homework?
Histeria! had a sketch detailing John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men manuscript getting torn up (see Real Life folder), with kids everywhere congratulating him on inventing such a brilliant excuse.
Jorel's Brother : In "Zazazila", the Extreme Omnivore dog Zazá eats Jorel's brother's essay about how he would change the world; his dad Edson even points out how the "lamest excuse ever" actually came true. Jorel's brother decides to make another identical essay... and puts a size-increasing pill inside it so he can enter the dog and get the essay back. While he does get it back eventually, Zazá had been a giant for long enough that she messed up the entire structure of the continents, a change that is kept permanent in the series.
KaBlam! anthologized the Jetcat episode "Project: Evil" where Tod may have tell his teacher that the hyenas that threaten eat him ate his notebook.
Kick Buttowski tells his teacher that a dog ate his homework, and it's the truth. A vicious little dog did (and is shown in Flashback ) eat his homework.
Martha Speaks : In a between-episode segment, T.D. brings Martha the dog to school and asks her to say that she ate his homework. There's also a song sung by Helen saying that Martha ate her music homework, which she actually does in the episode "Martha Sings".
¡Mucha Lucha! : Before Rikochet can present his Day of the Dead diorama to class, his pet Masked Dog ate it. The fact that there was Pan de Muerto on it may have caused it.
Pet Alien : "When TV Ruled the World" has Tommy get an F after Gumpers ate his homework. Apparently, the teacher didn't take "aliens ate my homework" as a valid excuse.
Puff the Magic Dragon : In Puff in the Land of Living Lies , Sandy lies to her teacher that a dragon stole her homework and ate it with ketchup and mustard. At the beginning of the special, Puff acts out this lie, before explaining that it was a lie.
Recess : TJ tries to have his teacher believe this showing his homework shredded and drooled (which was done by him and never started the assignment). She didn't believe it since he still had a scrap of paper on his lip. In the same episode, Spinelli uses the typical "dog ate it" response, and Vince claims his brother ate it . Vince: My brother ate it! Miss Grotke: Eaten by a family member? That's a new one .
The Secret Files of The Spy Dogs had Sheela's dog eating her homework... on purpose. Because she has accidentally created a formula that seizes the king-side doggie food packs, Von Rubie tries to rewrite the homework from scratch, but when his mistress arrives... Needless to say, the trope happens, as well as Rubie escaping through the window.
In " Bart the Murderer ", the dog really did eat Bart's homework just before he left for school. "You ate my homework? ... I didn't know dogs really did that."
When the family dog, Santa's Little Helper, starts working for the police, Bart has no choice but to eat his own homework.
In an episode where Bart's teacher starts dating Ned Flanders and saw Santa's Little Helper, she asked Bart if that's the dog that eats his homework. Trying to convince her by giving the dog a homework for him to eat. The dog refuses. Bart then covers the homework with dog food. The dog ate the food, cleaned the paper, and signaled the answer of a math question.
When Bart is nominated for class president and asked to give a speech, he says the dog ate his speech.
SpongeBob SquarePants : Some children's homework fell victim to the Alaskan Bullworm on the corresponding episode .
Tales from the Cryptkeeper : There's a boy who, instead of using a dog, uses a monster as an excuse. He tells a homework-eating monster another monster showed up before. After a trip to monster land, the boy confesses and the monster takes him home and makes him do two homeworks: one to be eaten and another one to be taken to school.
Uncle Grandpa : "Uncle Grandpa Ate My Homework" begins with the title character eating a boy's diorama of Ancient Egypt, which he needed to pass the class. Naturally, Uncle Grandpa tries to help, and naturally things go horribly wrong.
What A Cartoon! Show : One short has a cowboy telling his teacher his dog ate his homework. Obviously, she doesn't believe him, but he tries to prove it by pulling out a dog chewing on a piece of loose-leaf paper. The teacher responds by lecturing him on bringing pets to class.
Many dogs like to chew on things and some find that textbooks and other homework actually are worth eating.
This trope has been slowly replaced with "My printer broke" or "My email stopped working" in high schools. For adults, it's something like, "my social media was hacked", when they post something controversial.
A T-shirt available on Threadless features an X-ray of a dog. Inside the dog is a math book, a protractor, a pencil, and so on.
If you take a culinary class, this is a very real possibility. And it might not just be the dog. You might have to say, "My roommate ate my homework."
While filming Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom , Steven Spielberg literally had to fill out an insurance claim for one of the costumes with the words " dress eaten by elephant ". It can almost be seen in the movie, during the campfire at night scene - the elephant's head is just out of frame as it's eating the dress in front of the entire crew, who are somehow not bursting into laughter.
"My dog ate my homework" is gradually giving way to "My bird ate my homework." Nobody is quite sure why birds such as cockatiels are so compelled to nibble on loose papers.
John Steinbeck had to rewrite half of Of Mice and Men after his dog Toby partially destroyed the first manuscript.

Alternative Title(s): The Dog Ate My Homework

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30 Dog Idioms and Phrases – Origins and Meanings

| Candace Osmond

Candace Osmond

Candace Osmond studied Advanced Writing & Editing Essentials at MHC. She’s been an International and USA TODAY Bestselling Author for over a decade. And she’s worked as an Editor for several mid-sized publications. Candace has a keen eye for content editing and a high degree of expertise in Fiction.

Have you wondered why people say, “it’s raining cats and dogs”? Or why “every dog has its day”? Some phrases about dogs have been around for centuries, and we’ve integrated them into ordinary conversations. I actually use a ton of these phrases in writing, but I’ve also grown up hearing them used in various ways. Let’s discover more about the meaning and origin of the sayings with “dog” in them.

Where Did Dog Idioms Come From?

Like most animal idioms, dog cliches might be older than you think, with some dating back to Julius Caesar. But have you ever wondered what all these expressions mean? We associate dogs with happiness and carefree life, but many dog idioms are gloomier than you think.

Funny Dog Idioms

There are more than a handful of canine idioms in the English language, ranging from euphemisms to Cockney rhyming slang. Since canines and humans have been pals for millennia, this should be no surprise.

The Dog Ate My Homework

According to what I found in the Oxford English Dictionary, the first printed use of the excuse “the dog ate my homework” can be traced back to a speech by retiring headmaster James Bewsher in 1929 .

How this comment is worded gives the impression that the entire “my dog ate my homework” narrative was already in circulation for some time before it was placed on paper.

Are you unable to finish your food but feel it is simply too delicious to throw away? Why not ask your waiter for a box or bag to take your food home in? It is believed that the earliest use of doggy bags was a courteous way to ask to take restaurant leftovers home by saying that dinners were bringing it for your puppy.

Doggy bags are still commonly used today for this purpose. All the diners desired were the previous day’s leftovers for breakfast the following morning.

Dog’s Body

Peas pudding, often known as “dog’s body,” was the primary source of nutrition for members of the Royal Navy during the 19th century. This dish was made by boiling dried peas and eggs in a bag.

Later on, it evolved into a word that was used to refer to an individual who did all the labor that higher-ranking officials in the Navy did not want to do. It is likely because nobody enjoyed eating peas pudding.

Believe it or not, I eat this dish several times a year as it’s a Newfoundland specialty. I had no idea until now it had a relation to an old idiom.

Dog Idioms and Puns

It’s raining cats and dogs.

There are more possible origin stories for this phrase than there are dog treats on the entire planet. Ideas include:

Allusions to Norse mythology.
Translations of arcane French terminology.
Even stranger conjecture concerning thatched roofs.

The theory that “it’s raining cats and dogs” originated from the satirical poem A Description of a City Shower written by the poet Jonathan Swift is the one that seems to hold the most water.

In this poem, Swift criticizes the society of London in the year 1710 by implying streets would be flooded and animals would drown. Later, Swift compiled a collection of familiar and brilliant words into a book, which included the phrase “raining cats and dogs.”

As Mean as a Junkyard Dog

Why is it that the dogs who live in junkyards always seem to be so tremendously hostile and even vicious? You could claim that they are there to prevent anyone from coming too close to them. They rarely even feel the urge to make a sound.

The proverb junkyard dog conveys the idea that a person is ruthless. A person who is harsh or eager to fight can also be described using this term.

Better the Head of a Dog Than the Tail of a Lion

This is one of those clever phrases you can figure out with little imagination. It’s a phrase used to describe a situation where one would rather be the leader of a smaller group than a subordinate in a more popular one.

A Shaggy Dog Story

This is an expression that means a narrative that has the potential to be amusing but almost always turns out to be unreasonably long. When someone is telling a joke, this phrase is frequently used in the context of the joke having an abrupt or meaningless ending.

Hair of the Dog

In the Middle Ages, people who rabid dogs bit were advised to put the dog’s hair on the wound to help heal and prevent infection. This piece of advice has developed through time to accommodate more contemporary circumstances.

Today, the term “ the hair of the dog ” is most frequently heard in the context of advising someone who had too much to drink the night before to take the “same drink from the previous evening” (also known as “the hair of the dog”) the following day to cure their hangover.

Puppy Idioms

Everyone loves puppies. What we love even more is the chance to use them in adorable expressions.

The smile on a person’s face while they are falling for their new beaux, is the clearest indicator that they are experiencing puppy love, which might mean being smitten or referring to a form of love more common in adolescents. In all honesty, it has a mushy consistency.

Puppy Dog Eyes

My kids give me puppy dog eyes all the time. And who can say no to a puppy looking at them with those heart-melting eyes? It’s no different with children. Today, it’s a common expression people use when describing someone making an adorable face when they want something.

Pretty as a Speckled Pup

It’s an idiom used to describe someone or something incredibly cute.

Bought a Pup

It is a manner of referring to someone who has been tricked. For instance, they believed they were purchasing something significantly superior to what they obtained.

Your Dog Is Not My Dog Idiom Meaning

When you tell someone, “your god is not my dog,” it means their problem is not yours. You will commonly find it shortened to “not my dog.”

Dog Idioms to Use in Your Writing

Let sleeping dogs lie.

Let sleeping dogs lie means avoiding a situation that might cause disturbance when tackled. The expression “let sleeping dogs lie” is a gentle nudge to refrain from putting oneself in needless peril or risk. This proverb comes from the old belief that rousing a sleeping dog, particularly in a hasty manner, could result in severe consequences.

This is true even more so in the case of guard dogs, which, if awakened, are highly inclined to launch an attack. This expression is now commonly used to refer to a wide variety of scenarios in which one might prod something that would be better off not being disturbed.

The proverb “Let sleeping dogs lie” is meant to serve as a warning, either to another person or to oneself, regarding the potential risks posed by a particular action or behavior.

For instance, a buddy might use this expression to warn another person against engaging in behavior that would be better off avoided.

One further option is to simply repeat the statement out loud to themselves as a gentle reminder not to act hastily or precipitously. When trying to “wake a sleeping dog,” it is crucial to be calm and controlled.

Go to the Dogs

This expression showcases dissatisfaction with how things are proceeding, whether in politics or football teams. As an illustration, one can say, “this situation has gone to the dogs.” Greyhound racing likely is where the saying got its start.

It refers to the risks associated with gambling; a person said to have “gone to the dogs” is likely to have gambled away their entire paycheck on the dog races. Dog welfare organizations such as Dog’s Trust and the RSPCA advocate for more humane treatment of racing dogs, even though the sport may be entertaining and addicting.

His/Her Bark Is Worse Than His/Her Bite

We use this idiom when talking about someone who sounds more threatening than they are. When someone tells you their angry or hostile remarks cannot hurt you, they use the phrase “bark is worse than one’s bite.” This expression suggests that the person in question talks as if he will be vengeful or violent, but in reality, their deeds will not be as aggressive as their words.

A person whose words are more harmful than his actions may criticize you, but they will not make an effort to hurt your professional reputation or punch you in the face.

The phrase “bark is worse than one’s bite” first appeared in print about the middle of the 1600s. Its meaning refers to the notion that a dog barking at you will be too preoccupied with barking to bite you.

Dog behaviorists believe that a dog barking out of fear is not as fearless as a dog eager to bite; an aggressive dog will growl rather than bark in response to a threat.

Saying you are “dog-tired” means you are exhausted. The origin can be traced back to an old story about Alfred the Great, who is said to have sent his sons on hunting expeditions with his enormous kennels of hunting dogs.

Whichever of his sons, Athelbrod or Edwin, was successfully capturing a more significant number of the hounds would be given the right-hand side seat at the dinner table that evening by their respective fathers. They would end up “dog-tired” from these pursuits, but they would celebrate their success with joy.

The tradition was carried on for a few more generations, but following Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, no further mention of it can be found in written sources.

In the Doghouse

Being in the doghouse means you’re in a bad situation because someone is angry with you. When partners in a relationship argue, they sometimes need some space apart from one other rather than trying to sort things out.

Taking a stroll, going for a drive, or putting someone in “the doghouse” are all possible interpretations of this phrase.

The first such mention of a spouse being sent to “the doghouse” can be traced back to J.M. Barrie’s iconic children’s book, Peter Pan, published in 1911.

You might remember from the narrative that the Darling family has a dog in the story called Nana. A kennel, also known as a doghouse, is a tiny shelter in the yard that is fashioned in the shape of a house.

This is where Nana resided back when it was the norm. When a repentant Mr. Darling realizes that he is to fault for the abduction of his children by Captain Hook, he locks himself in the kennel that Nana keeps for her dogs.

Barking up the Wrong Tree

“Barking up the wrong tree” is a commonly used idiom with more complexity behind it. It is generally used to describe a person who has chosen the wrong course of action, but the meaning can differ based on the context.

The expression “barking up the wrong tree” was used in the United States during the 19th century. It refers to raccoon hunting using a hunting dog. The dog is trained to wait at the base of the tree for its owner to return whenever a nocturnal animal climbs into a tree.

In the darkness, however, if the hunter’s dog misidentifies the tree as the one where the raccoon has taken refuge, the hunter risks losing the animal.

Dog-Eat-Dog

Grammarist Article Graphic V2 2022 08 06T162746.802

The expression “ dog-eat-dog ” refers to a harsh and competitive environment. The idiom can also have a more violet meaning, describing people that would harm others to get what they want.

The earliest known origin of this term derives from the Latin proverb “canis caninam non est,” which translates literally to “dog will not eat dog.” The Oxford English Dictionary documents the phrase’s reemergence in 1794, albeit without the “not.”

By the 19th century, it’d become a frequent way to refer to the cutthroat, competitive nature of the world in modern society and commerce. A dog-eat-dog world.

Sick as a Dog

The idiom “sick as a dog” describes someone who feels very ill. The comparison of unwanted things to dogs was prevalent in the early 1700s, when the expression “sick as a dog” started. This was the period in which the phrase was first used.

This is not because people did not like dogs at the time. Instead, the rationale is that diseases like the plague were frequently transferred via animals like rats or dogs.

Growing up in rural Newfoundland, I heard this phrase used all the time. Any time someone was sick with a cold or flu, they said they were sick as a dog. Only, it was more like, “I’m sick as a dawg, m’dear”.

The expression “dog days” refers to the hottest time of the year. When people talk about dog days, it’s mainly in a context where it’s challenging to get anything done because of the heat.

When viewed from the Northern Hemisphere in late July, the “dog days” time when Sirius appeared to rise in conjunction with the sun. This occurred in ancient Greece and Rome. They believed that the combined heat from the two stars caused these days to be the hottest of the year, a time that may bring about fever or even a catastrophe.

Since the beginning of written history, people have been complaining about the weather, and the dog days of summer were a particularly significant time for everyone. In particular, the ancient Greeks and Romans had negative thoughts about Sirius because they connected it with an intolerable heat and fever epidemic.

You Can’t Teach an Old Dog New Tricks

Not being able to teach an old dog new tricks means that someone cannot learn something new. The phrase is used when someone is too stubborn in their ways and refuses to learn how to do something in a new fashion.

The phrase or adage “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks” was first referenced in John Fitzherbert’s book The Book of Husbandry, released in 1534. Since then, several authors have taken the phrase or proverb and utilized it in various senses, depending on the situation.

This expression refers to a book that has pages that have dog-eared corners has been used so frequently that the page corners have been ripped off or turned down. In my line of work, it’s a blasphemous thing to do.

Every Dog Has Its Day

This idiom has a deeper meaning with a lot of historical background. It describes a person (usually of low status) living a moment of glory. This idiom dates back several thousand years, although it has not always been expressed in this particular manner in the English language.

Erasmus was able to trace the origin of the metaphor back to a Macedonian adage that discussed the passing of Euripides in 406 B.C. He was attacked and killed by his rival’s dogs.

In the early 1500s, a letter written by Queen Elizabeth had the earliest known instance of the phrase being used in the English language. In 1550, John Strype published the letter in a collection called Ecclesiastical Memorials.

Call Off the Dogs

Calling off the dogs is a figure of speech we use when someone stops criticizing another person. The dogs being referred to in this expression are those used for hunting. As a standard method of intimidation, these dogs are frequently set free. They are dismissed from their duties and returned to their kennel once they have completed their assigned tasks.

By comparison, the expression refers to a circumstance in which one is advised to quit acting violently against another person.

Someone who is not considered a favorite to win a tournament or contest is known as an underdog. It’s a term commonly used in sports and other similar competitions. As a fiction author, I see this term used a lot in the writing community. Readers always root for the underdog character.

An underdog is a term that can be applied to anyone who is at a disadvantage, whether it be in general or in a specific situation. It is customary in the world of sports to refer to the favored team coming out on the losing end as the underdog.

Around the year 1887, this term was first used in the context of dogfighting to denote a dog that had been defeated in a battle.

A heroic dog who went underdog in a cartoon from the 1960s was shown as an improbable (and unqualified) figure. The slogan for the show was “There is no reason to be afraid! Underdog is here!”

Dog-and-Pony Show

This idiom is used to describe something fancy and flashy. Marketing comes to mind when thinking about this idiom. In finance, this idiom refers to, in most cases, a seminar or presentation intended to advertise new items or services to prospective purchasers.

Apparently, the phrase originated from the itinerant circuses that toured rural areas throughout the United States and featured performing dogs and horses. It is an expression that typically has a pejorative connotation.

This expression refers to overly dramatic shows that are not fun to put on but are frequently required.

It’s a Dog’s Life

The idiom “it’s a dog’s life” refers to an unhappy existence. This phrase refers to the wretched and servile lives that dogs were forced to live during the 16th century and was initially recorded in a manuscript from that period.

Like a Dog with Two Tails

The popular phrase “like a dog with two tails” refers to someone overjoyed or joyful. It alludes to the concept that a dog wags its tail as a sign of pleasure or contentment. The idiom originated in Southern Canada.

Most publications that investigate the origins of idioms were unaware of this. They point to a magazine called American Speech from the early 20th century as the source of this term’s first recorded use. Duke University published American Speech.

A Scottish engineer named John Mactaggart traveled to Upper and Lower Canada. He was there in the early 1800s. It was decided to recruit him to assist in constructing a bridge that would cross the Ottawa River at Chaudière Falls and connect the two Canadian provinces.

After returning to England, he wrote the book Three Years in Canada, in which he made the following proclamation: “Off went the Laird, as proud as a dog with two tails.”

Final Thoughts

You can use plenty of dog phrases to enrich your vocabulary, but some of them are less known to those who aren’t native English speakers. With some of them being as old as time, it’s fun to see where these idioms originated and how we use them in everyday language.

Check out some others we covered:

To keep a secret
Let me know when
Speak of the devil or Talk of the devil
Talk a blue streak and curse a blue streak

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the days of the dog ate my homework are well behind us

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The Truth Behind the “Dog Ate My Homework” Excuse: Exploring Its Effectiveness and Psychological Implications

By Happy Sharer

Introduction

The “dog ate my homework” excuse has been around for decades and is one of the most popular reasons students give for not completing their assignments on time. It’s used as both an excuse and a joke, but what does it really mean? This article will explore the truth behind the “dog ate my homework” excuse, examining its effectiveness and psychological implications.

An Examination of the Effectiveness of Using the “Dog Ate My Homework” Excuse

It may seem like an obvious answer to the question of whether or not a dog actually ate your homework, but there are some important factors to consider. First, it is important to look at why students use this excuse more than others. According to a study by the University of Michigan, students who use the “dog ate my homework” excuse are often trying to avoid being held accountable for their actions. They are also more likely to be struggling academically and trying to find a way out of doing the work.

Another factor to consider is whether or not this excuse is actually effective. While it may sound like a good idea in theory, the truth is that it rarely works. In fact, research shows that teachers are more likely to believe other excuses such as forgetting or running out of time. Furthermore, using the “dog ate my homework” excuse could backfire and make the teacher less likely to believe any future excuses.

Interviewing Dog Owners on the Truth Behind This Excuse

In order to get a better understanding of the “dog ate my homework” excuse, I interviewed several dog owners to get their perspectives. One dog owner, Mary, believes that the excuse is rooted in cultural history. She says, “I think the excuse comes from a long-standing belief that dogs have a tendency to get into things they shouldn’t. So, when a student can’t do their assignment, they might just blame it on the dog to avoid getting in trouble.”

Another dog owner, John, sees the “dog ate my homework” excuse as a way to shift the blame away from the student. He explains, “It’s human nature to want to avoid being held accountable for our actions. So, if a student can’t do their assignment, they might try to blame it on the dog to avoid taking responsibility.”

Finally, I spoke with a third dog owner, Susan, who believes that the “dog ate my homework” excuse can have a negative impact on student-teacher relationships. She notes, “If a teacher hears this excuse too often, it can erode their trust in the student. And, even if the excuse is true, the teacher may become less likely to believe future excuses from that student.”

Exploring the Psychological Implications of Using This Excuse

In addition to examining the effectiveness of the “dog ate my homework” excuse, it is also important to look at its psychological implications. Lying is never a good thing and can have serious consequences, both in the short and long term. According to a study by the American Psychological Association, lying can lead to feelings of guilt, anxiety, and depression.

Furthermore, claiming a dog ate your homework can also have a negative impact on your relationship with your teacher. If the teacher finds out you lied, they may be less likely to trust you in the future. This can lead to a strained relationship and make it difficult to ask for help when you need it.

The “dog ate my homework” excuse is a popular one, but it is rarely effective and can have serious psychological implications. Not only is it unlikely to convince a teacher that you haven’t done your assignment, but it can also lead to feelings of guilt and anxiety. Furthermore, it can damage your relationship with your teacher and make it harder to ask for help in the future. Ultimately, it is best to avoid using this excuse and take responsibility for your actions.

In conclusion, the “dog ate my homework” excuse has been around for decades and is often used as a joke or an excuse. However, this article has shown that it is rarely effective and can have serious psychological implications. Therefore, it is best to avoid using this excuse and take responsibility for your actions.

Call to Action

If you are in a situation where you need to come up with an excuse for not completing your homework, try to be honest and take responsibility for your actions. Lying is never a good idea and can lead to feelings of guilt and anxiety. Furthermore, it can damage your relationships with your teachers and make it harder to ask for help in the future. So, the next time you need to come up with an excuse, be honest and take responsibility.

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Sometimes the dog really does eat your homework.

Last week, we brought you the story of how the phrase "The Dog Ate My Homework" came to be and how it morphed into a palpably ridiculous excuse. Turns out, sometimes its not an excuse at all. Weekend Edition host Scott Simon has a few stories from our listeners that swear, honest, the dog did eat their homework.

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Why Do We Say “The Dog Ate My Homework”?

The history of the delinquent schoolchild’s favorite excuse..

Did this sad Lab eat your homework?

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Got a question about today’s news? Ask the Explainer .

Explainer thanks Barry Popik, Jesse Sheidlower of the Oxford English Dictionary, and Ben Zimmer of the Visual Thesaurus and Vocabulary.com .

If the dog ate your homework, read this

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Dear Students,

I taught my first freshman composition class more than 40 years ago. Your class is my last.

We began the semester with 36 students. I predicted on the first day that I would probably wind up giving grades to half that many. Had I been more strict about dropping people whose attendance was erratic and whose assignments weren’t coming in, I would have been right. But I let lots of students slide. I didn’t drop people who weren’t showing up, nor did I drop the people who weren’t doing the work. That was no favor because now I’m forced to give grades that will narrow future options for people who might have gone further, had they only tried. If you were one of the students who missed more than five or six classes, or who failed to turn in most of the assignments, you need to ask yourself if you’re making good use of your time. There are always excuses for not showing up, or not turning work in. I’ve heard them all. But lives built on excuses generally don’t turn out well.

There were a handful of people in this class who made it here every day, always with the assigned writing completed. If I were an employer, these are the people I would want as employees.

But I have never liked to think of myself as working to provide a screening process for your future bosses. I like to think I’m working for you, and helping build your futures as more fully realized human beings. In that light, some of you have failed this semester. You’ve failed yourselves. As a result, some of you learned very little and showed no discernible improvement in your writing, wasting your time and mine.

I never find it pleasant or productive to guilt-trip students. But if just one of you reads these words and decides to take your education a bit more seriously, it was worth writing them.

Few people care whether you succeed or fail. You are not showing up to class for your teachers or even your parents. You’re not doing these assignments for anyone but yourselves. If you cut classes because your teachers bore you, then you should be dropping those classes, not piddling away your GPA.

I went to a community college too. I screwed up in high school, graduating in the bottom third of my class. But I married and became a father not long thereafter. Those responsibilities made me quite serious about the second chance offered by the community college system. It’s difficult to maintain a slacker attitude when you’re up nightly with 2 o’clock feedings of an infant daughter whose vulnerability and dependence on you are impossible to overlook. Had I not shown up regularly and done the work conscientiously, I would have blown that second chance. I would have had a much different life, a much poorer one, not only materially but intellectually and even spiritually. And my children would have had poorer lives too, because what I learned in college was shared with them in ways too numerous to count. I’ve never regretted the portion of my youth that I devoted to study.

And I’ve never regretted spending so much of my adult life teaching in community colleges. I’m glad I was able to help some of my students get their own second chances. Most of the people who attend community colleges have very little handed to them. We are not favored by wealth or connections. Unlike the Donald Trumps of the world, those born to the mansion, the way is not made easy for us. So it is something of a crime against our very selves when we squander the second chance when it is offered.

Some of you did just that this semester, throwing away time and opportunity. If next semester provides another opportunity, I hope you will seize it. Life has a way of getting serious with us well before some of us decide to get serious with it. By that time, it may be too late to build the life you might have wanted.

And if you don’t know just what it is you do want, drop out of school until you figure it out. If you misuse your time here, you will erode the chance you have for a more hopeful future. In the papers you wrote, I occasionally pointed out cliches in your prose. In this note to you, however, I have turned myself into a living cliche, an old teacher scolding the young for lack of seriousness. But ignore the hectoring of an old man who has traveled the road that lies ahead of you and you could become your own living cliche — the loser who squandered opportunity. My hope is that you do not.

Jaime O’Neill is a writer in Northern California.

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word histories

“ad fontes!”

early history of the phrase ‘the dog ate my homework’

There is one adjunct of a sermon, which nearly all who hear admire, and which all who preach may possess if they please—brevity. Unhappily, the speakers, whom this virtue would most gracefully become, do not seem to be aware of its existence; like Nelson, they put the telescope to the blind eye , when signals are made to “cease firing.” They decline to notice manifest indications of weariness, yawns, sighs, readjustment of limbs, ostentatious inspection of watches; and they seem rather to be soothed than offended by soft sounds of slumber, as though it were music from La Somnambula. One of these tedious preachers went away for his holiday, and the clergyman who took his duties in his absence apologized one Sunday to the clerk in the vestry, when the service was over, for the shortness of his sermon: a dog had been in his study, and torn out some of the pages. “Oh, sir,” said the clerk, a bright beam of hope on his countenance, “do you think that you could spare our vicar a pup ?”

In my efforts to make my annual address as brief as possible it reminds me of a Scotch story. Donald McPherson was a leading member and also a leading deacon in an old church in Scotland, whose old minister had for many years inflicted on his congregation very long and tiresome sermons. One Sunday the old minister was invited to fill the pulpit of a church in an adjoining parish, and Donald’s congregation, thinking this was a good chance to get a much younger man, got one to fill the pulpit for that day. After the services, and as the young minister and Donald were walking home together, the minister naturally asked: “Well, Mr. McPherson, how did you enjoy the sermon?” Donald replied: “Well, minister,” he said, “I think it sounded kind of disconnected, but I liked it awfully well because it was brief.” The young minister was a little frustrated at the frank expression or criticism and replied: “Well, Mr. McPherson, there was perhaps a reason for it being brief and disconnected.” Donald replied: “And what was the reason?” “Well, sir,” the minister stated, “in coming to church this morning, I had occasion to change my manuscript from one pocket to the other, and while doing so, unfortunately, a sudden gust of wind came along and blew several of the pages down the street, and a dog seeing the flying papers got after them, and really, Mr. McPherson, what he didn’t destroy he practically eat up.” Donald, on hearing the excuse, replied: “And so, Mr. Minister, the reason your sermon was brief was because a dog ate it.” “Well,” replied the minister, “yes, Mr. McPherson, that is practically true.” “Well, well,” says Donald, “I will tell you, I am willing to forgive you, and so is all of the congregation, if you will only send a pup of that dog to our old minister.”

“I think that the boys are no worse than they used to be,” said Mr. Bewsher, “in fact I think sometimes they are better. It is a long time since I have had the excuse about the dog tearing up the arithmetic homework . (Laughter.) We have trained the young boys to accept some responsibility and to achieve the power of rising to the occasion when crises happen.”

He kept a dog, and taught us Greek prose and verse. The two facts are connected in my memory by his occasional apology when he got behindhand with his work, “I’m very sorry, but my dog’s eaten your Greek prose .”

– Mom!! Where’s that fudge pie I whipped up? – With boys around, that’s a silly question! – Oh, no!! Not my whole pie !!! – After the way I slaved! – You dizzy creeps!! I baked that to take to domestic science class tomorrow!! – You ate my homework !!

“ My little brother ate my homework .” The excuse has not been tried yet, but it could happen in City College of San Francisco’s hotel and restaurant course, a unique series of classes in which students cook and serve 5,000 meals each school day, punch a time clock and in which part of the “final” is a semi-annual banquet.

– What happened to the cupcakes I made for my cooking class? – I ate those cupcakes – Boo-hoo, Mommy – Daddy ate my homework !

Any teacher gullible enough to fall for the inevitable story, “ my little sister ate my homework ,” without demanding a new version of the same, deserves the reputation she will soon have to live with.

News, Notes, Talk

Fun fact: John Steinbeck’s dog ate the first draft of Of Mice and Men .

“The dog ate my homework” is, perhaps, the oldest excuse in the book. But it really happened to John Steinbeck! His dog, Toby, apparently ate half of the first manuscript of Of Mice and Men .

On this very day, May 27, 1936, he wrote :

Minor tragedy stalked. My setter pup, left alone one night, made confetti of about half of my manuscript book. Two months work to do over again. It set me back. There was no other draft. I was pretty mad, but the poor little fellow may have been acting critically. I didn’t want to ruin a good dog for a manuscript I’m not sure is good at all. He only got an ordinary spanking … I’m not sure Toby didn’t know what he was doing when he ate the first draft. I have promoted Toby-dog to be a lieutenant-colonel in charge of literature.

Dog lover that he was, at least he was in good humor about it! (Maybe the moral here is: if your first draft gets destroyed, don’t terrier self up about it!)

As for Toby, maybe he really was trying to tell his owner that the first draft was ruff and he didn’t want Steinbeck to setter for it. Or he was hounding him to finish the thing, already! Maybe he just didn’t like that Lennie accidentally killed that innocent dog in the book.

Or maybe Toby somehow knew that later in life, John Steinbeck would go on to write a travelogue with his other dog, a poodle named Charley.

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May 6, 2024.

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GREG BUSTIN’S

Executive leadership blog.

My Dog Ate My Homework… and Other Excuses

September 1st, 2015 |

It’s back to school season.

Whether you’re a student or a business executive, the back-to-school vibe is noticeable in classrooms, cubicles and conference rooms as calendars fill more quickly, cooler weather energizes behavior, and new assignments adopt an increasing sense of urgency.

The period between Labor Day and Thanksgiving is my busiest time of year as I work with leadership teams in strategic planning sessions to help colleagues agree on priorities, responsibilities, and action items for the coming year and beyond.

Last year in Forbes Leadership Forum, I discussed why most company strategic plans fail . One reason is lack of accountability.

Talk is Cheap

Part of what makes accountability difficult is that when you work with smart people and things don’t get done well or on time, you often are handed excuses.

“My dog ate my homework” is an excuse that sprang from a 1905 anecdote about a minister temporarily filling in for another minister.

At the time, William ApMadoc, a contributor to the Welsh journal The Cambrian , indicated the initial punchline had more to do with brevity than an excuse for non-performance.

In ApMadoc’s telling, a visiting minister asked a clerk how his sermon had been received, and, in particular, whether it had been long enough. Upon hearing from the clerk the length was sufficient, the minister replied that just before the service his dog had eaten some of the paper on which the sermon was written. “Well,” replied the clerk, who felt his regular preacher’s sermons could be shorter, “couldn’t you give our vicar a pup from your dog?”

It was not until 1965 in Bel Kaufman’s best-selling novel Up the Down Staircase that students blamed their failure to complete an assignment on their dogs.

Since then, “My dog ate my homework” has become code in and out of classrooms for a lame excuse.

In the workplace, time, talent and treasure (money) are the three commodities every organization has in common, and here’s what lack of accountability sounds like:

Time I put out fires all day, so there’s no time to work on my stuff. Our deadlines are unrealistic. The deadline was unclear. I spend my time doing my boss’s work. I spend my time doing work my staff should be doing. I spend my time on tactical—not strategic—work. We can’t always get it right the first time but we can make time to fix it. There’s no sense of urgency around here. I ran out of time. His performance will improve with time.

Talent We don’t have the right people. We don’t have enough people. We don’t have enough of the right people. The people on our team can’t think for themselves. He let me down. These people don’t report to me, so their work is not my fault. I didn’t know I was allowed to make that decision. I didn’t understand the assignment. It wasn’t my job. The changes we made are preventing me from getting things done. My team won’t like me if I confront their performance issues. People here are not team players. That person is a family member and the rules don’t apply to her. We can’t keep our best people so we are not very effective.

Treasure We underprice what we sell so we can’t staff properly. We can’t agree on priorities so our budgets are spread too thin. Our customers beat us up on price so we can’t charge more. We are constantly being asked to do more with less, including more work for the same salary. Money is tight so we can’t hire the people we need.

It’s a vicious circle, and the excuses are infinite.

Talk is cheap so we often buy it. When we do, accountability suffers.

Moving from Excuses to Accountability

As leaders, we get the behavior we tolerate. So when it comes to holding people accountable, we are often our own worst enemy.

That was my story.

Despite achieving record financial results year over year, the firm I founded and led could have accomplished more. There would have been more fun and less drama if I knew then what I know now about accountability.

At the time, I accepted excuses that sounded logical even when I knew better. I allowed emotions to cloud my decision making. I delayed having a conversation with my underperforming partner because it was easier to avoid a difficult conversation than having one. Instead of practicing accountability, I practiced avoidance.

By the time I asked my partner to leave, I had learned three valuable lessons:

Clear expectations must be established. I assumed my partner and I both had the same definition of success. We didn’t. My failure to set clear expectations meant evaluating his performance was subjective. Excuses were plentiful, performance was lacking and accountability was non-existent. When your purpose, expectations, and rewards are crystal clear, your employees will embrace accountability as a way to become even more successful. The opposite is also true: If you are not clear about everything—vision, values, objectives, strategy, rewards, and, yes, penalties—the likelihood of achieving your vision is slim.
Bad news does not improve with age. I avoided discussing my partner’s performance issues for too long because I assumed his performance would improve. Now I know that as soon as you see a problem, it’s best to address it immediately. Failure to speak frankly with the person about his or her performance means nothing will change.
It’s not personal. Yes, you’re talking with a person, but leave excuses, emotions, and opinions behind. Stick to the facts, set a plan to get performance back on track, and communicate specific consequences for underperformance. If underperformers require termination, do it professionally and move on.

The day after we separated, my partner called to say he appreciated the straightforward, professional, and respectful manner in which I had handled our final meeting.

Even though these comments reflected well on his gracious acceptance of tough news, they reminded me that everyone feels better when accountability issues are addressed.

Excuses are substitutes for effort.

As a leader, be careful you’re not creating excuses for yourself over a difficult decision that is yours alone to make.

Download my Free eBooks on Accountability

About the Author: Greg Bustin advises some of the world’s most admired companies and leaders, and he’s dedicated a career to working with CEOs and the leadership teams of hundreds of companies in a range of industries. He’s facilitated more than 250 strategic planning sessions, he’s delivered more than 600 keynotes and workshops on every continent except Antarctica, and he coaches leaders who are inspired to take their career to the next level. His fourth leadership book— Accountability: The Key to Driving a High-Performance Culture (McGraw-Hill) —is a Soundview Executive Best Business Book.

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the dog ate my homework

English [ edit ]

Phrase [ edit ].

2011 May 6, Damian Carrington, “Environment action delays blamed on 'dog ate my homework' excuses”, in The Guardian ‎ [1] , archived from the original on 2022-08-24 : Their reasons for missed deadlines are mostly of the " dog ate my homework variety" including such easily foreseeable events as yesterday's elections and that the badger culling policy is "difficult and sensitive".
2014 September 12, Oscar Webb, quoting Donald Campbell, “UK Government Changes Its Line On Diego Garcia Flight Logs Sought in Rendition Row - Again”, in VICE ‎ [2] , archived from the original on 2022-12-05 : The government's excuses for Diego Garcia's missing records are getting increasingly confused and desperate. Ministers could hardly be less credible if they simply said ' the dog ate my homework .'
2017 February 18, Mia Berman, “Go West-minster, Young Mastiff”, in HuffPost ‎ [3] , archived from the original on 2019-04-09 : Our immune system's weak; we've been sick as a dog, missing work and school, resorting to " the dog ate my homework " excuses amidst these frigid dog days of winter.

References [ edit ]

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The dog ate my homework!

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Forrest Wickman, a writer for Slate, describes the legend of the 6th-century Saint Ciarán of Clonmacnoise as the alleged first recorded "the dog ate my homework" story. According to the tale, Saint Ciarán had a tame young fox that would take his writings to his master for him. One day, the fox grew up and decided to eat the leather strap ...

The days of "the dog ate my homework" are well behind us and, as tuition fees skyrocket and the job market tightens, the stakes have never been higher for busy students desperate to juggle ...

This article explores the truth behind the "dog ate my homework" excuse, examining its effectiveness and psychological implications. It looks at why students use this excuse more than others, interviewing dog owners to uncover the cultural history of the excuse. The article also discusses the consequences of claiming a dog ate your homework and the effects it can have on a person's mental health.

Sometimes The Dog Really Does Eat Your Homework. Last week, we brought you the story of how the phrase "The Dog Ate My Homework" came to be and how it morphed into a palpably ridiculous excuse ...

Between 1990 and 2000, the New York Times wrote articles with headlines such as "Beyond 'Dog Ate My Homework' " and "Homework Help Sites (Or, the Dog Ate My U.R.L.)," while The New ...

The dog ate my homework. " The dog ate my homework " (or " My dog ate my homework ") is an English expression which carries the suggestion of being a common, poorly fabricated excuse made by schoolchildren to explain their failure to turn in an assignment on time. The phrase is referenced, even beyond the educational context, as a sarcastic ...

If the dog ate your homework, read this. By Jaime O'Neill. May 22, 2011 12 AM PT. Dear Students, I taught my first freshman composition class more than 40 years ago. Your class is my last. We ...

The phrase the dog ate my homework and variants are used as, or denote, an unconvincing or far-fetched excuse: - for failing to hand in school homework, and, by extension: - for any failure to do or produce what was expected. The earliest mention that I have found of a person blaming a dog for their own unpreparedness is from More Memories: Being Thoughts about England spoken in America ...

"The dog ate my homework" is an English expression which carries the suggestion of being a common, poorly fabricated excuse made by schoolchildren to explain their failure to turn in an assignment on time. The phrase is referenced, even beyond the educational context, as a sarcastic rejoinder to any similarly glib or otherwise insufficient or implausible explanation for a failure in any context.

"The dog ate my homework" is a legendary excuse - no one is sure if a student has ever really used it. More sinister is the claim that one pupil made: she said that she saw a ghost flying away ...

The idiom "sick as a dog" describes someone who feels very ill. The comparison of unwanted things to dogs was prevalent in the early 1700s, when the expression "sick as a dog" started. This was the period in which the phrase was first used. This is not because people did not like dogs at the time.

What does the dog ate my homework expression mean? Definitions by the largest Idiom Dictionary. ... It dates from the late 1900s and is so well known that a Boston Globe headline for a book review of The Shallows: ... the dog ate my homework; the dog days; the dog that caught the car; the dogs bark, but the caravan goes on; the dog's bollocks;

"The dog ate my homework" is, perhaps, the oldest excuse in the book. But it really happened to John Steinbeck! His dog, Toby, apparently ate half of the first manuscript of Of Mice and Men. On this very day, May 27, 1936, he wrote: Minor tragedy stalked. My setter pup, left alone one night, made confetti of about half of my manuscript book.

No organization—not even high-performing organizations— is immune from the well-crafted excuse. What separates high-performing organizations from all the others is the way in which excuses are handled. "My dog ate my homework" is an excuse that sprang from a 1905 anecdote about a minister temporarily filling in for another minister.

(cliché, also attributively) A stereotypical unconvincing excuse for not completing school homework, or (by extension) not meeting one's obligations. 2011 May 6, Damian Carrington, "Environment action delays blamed on 'dog ate my homework' excuses", in The Guardian‎[1], archived from the original on 2022-08-24: Their reasons for missed deadlines ...

The first known time that anyone used the "dog ate my homework" excuse was, according to writing expert and educationist, Christoper Simpson, in 1835. The student who was said to have uttered the now famous explanation for the absence of homework was Henry Pennywhistle, but other sources attribute the words to a story about a Welsh minister ...

The days of "the dog ate my homework" are well behind us Author tried to explain that some students were trying to prove their innocence with a poorly fabricated excuse. Blaming pets for destroying homework is outdated in this modern era (Lee, 2014, para. 4).

The Dog Ate My Homework. By William McPherson. March 26, 1984 at 7:00 p.m. EST. I have a lot of sympathy for Gary Hart. Sometimes I don't remember my age, either. I'll get it somewhere in the ...

Step-by-step explanation. The days of saying "the dog ate my homework" are long since in the past. If a youngster uses the saying "my dog ate my homework" as an excuse to avoid doing their schoolwork, this phrase indicates that they can no longer use that defense. If a youngster uses the saying "my dog ate my homework" as an excuse to avoid ...

A day in the life of a young student whose perennial excuse for missing homework assignments ultimately comes true since the dog really did eat his homework and no one believes him Access-restricted-item

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The days of "the dog ate my homework" are well behind us and, as tuition fees skyrocket and the job market tightens, the stakes have never been higher for busy students desperate to juggle looming deadlines. ... which monitors changes in the living conditions and well-being of Canadians. It showed that 25 per cent of fathers and 12 per cent ...

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My Dog Ate My Homework

From the book The Biggest Burp Ever

My dog ate my homework. That mischievous pup got hold of my homework and gobbled it up.

My dog ate my homework. It’s gonna be late. I guess that the teacher will just have to wait.

My dog ate my homework. He swallowed it whole. I shouldn’t have mixed it with food in his bowl.

— Kenn Nesbitt

Reading Level: Grade 1 Topics: Animal Poems , School Poems Poetic Techniques: Irony , Narrative Poems Word Count: 60

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My dog ate my homework (Past Simple and Past Continuous)

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Grammar - Past Simple and Past Continuous

LESSON OVERVIEW

In this lesson, students learn the difference between Past Simple and Past Continuous . They also get the chance to practise using the two tenses in a variety of tasks.

PAST SIMPLE AND PAST CONTINUOUS

At the beginning of the lesson students read the definition of the word excuse and think what excuses people often give in different situations (e.g. when they are late). Then, students read six situations and think of an excuse they might give in each of them (e.g. You borrowed a friend’s laptop and broke it .) Next, they look at a list of excuses and match them with the situations they talked about. The excuses contain verbs in Past Simple and Past Continuous forms. After that, students look at some of the excuses again and find the verbs , as well as decide which tense they are. They also work out the rules of using Past Simple and Past Continuous.

In this part of the lesson students practise using the past tenses . First, they do a controlled activity in which they need to choose the correct verb forms in sentences. Then, they look at four photos of people who might have done something wrong and discuss some questions. For instance, they explain what happened (e.g. someone broke some plates), say whether these situations ever happened to them, and decide if the people should apologize for what happened. Then, students use the four photos to create some excuses for what happened. They need to use Past Simple and Past Continuous, as well as some verbs in brackets. Finally, students play a game in which they get a list of situations (e.g. You promised to cook dinner but you didn’t .). In pairs, they need to create excuses for what happened, and their partner needs to guess what the situation is.

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A photo illustration shows a hand holding a sandwich with an eager black-and-white dog staring at the food, its tongue curled around its snout.

work Friend

Don’t Blame the Office Dog for the Human Problem

Someone needs skills training.

Credit... Margeaux Walter for The New York Times

Supported by

By Roxane Gay

May 25, 2024

Send questions about the office, money, careers and work-life balance to [email protected] . Include your name and location, or a request to remain anonymous. Letters may be edited.

Make the Dog Days Over

I share my office with another co-worker and her large, stinky dog. I eat lunch at my desk and have to deal with the dog staring while I eat and sticking its head in my garbage can looking for leftovers. I listen to it obnoxiously drink water and eat. The dog is also scared of men. If strangers come to visit the office, it barks loudly and lunges! Mostly everyone I work with loves dogs, so I’d be in a losing battle if I even mentioned how I felt. I’m 99 percent sure my co-worker is aware I hate her dog, as I don’t pet it or interact with it. However, the dog keeps showing up. I have taken down the baby gate she was using to trap it in our office as I constantly tripped on it, and it made me feel like I was working in a cage. The dog has urinated and vomited on the office carpet numerous times, with minimal cleanup after. Any tips on how to get rid of Mutty McMuttface? — Anonymous

While your co-workers are dog people, you are not, and that’s OK! This isn’t just an issue of your co-worker’s bringing her dog to work. She’s bringing an untrained dog to work, and his challenges are encroaching on your day-to-day work life. The easiest solution is to ask for a new office or officemate. But also, let’s be real. The dog is not at fault here. The owner is to blame for not properly caring for her dog by cleaning up after him, for not keeping him tethered without disrupting the rest of the office and for not making sure he is well trained or kept in an environment where he feels safe. If you cannot move offices, you absolutely can tell your co-worker she needs to be more mindful in her care of the dog at work. If, after that, nothing improves, you may have to escalate through appropriate professional channels.

Bit of a Broken Record

I manage a small team of consultants. The work is technical and requires frequent client interactions and occasionally presenting to members of the public. One of my employees, who is mostly excellent at his job, nevertheless has one very peculiar habit: He continually repeats the same turn of phrase, sometimes in ways that make no sense in context. It is a verbal tic, very distracting albeit harmless. To protect his anonymity, let’s say it’s “quite frankly.” Now imagine watching someone give a 30-minute presentation in which he says “quite frankly” dozens of times, including in incongruous ways like: “Quite frankly, the next steps in the study are to document our findings in a final report.” No one has ever brought it to his attention. I feel unsure whether I should intervene. I don’t want to embarrass him. Do you think I should discuss it with him, and if so, what is the best way to broach the subject? — Anonymous

Many people have verbal tics. I’ve noticed some inserting the word “right” superfluously into conversation. It’s maddening. That said, it’s also relatively harmless, and for some people a verbal tic may be a symptom of a medical condition. In this context, yes, you can say something. Just be tactful. Be kind. When you have the opportunity to provide professional feedback, highlight everything he is doing well, and then broach the subject of his tic by simply pointing out that he uses this phrase quite a lot. He may not be aware. I would also share resources on how to overcome verbal tics. Some approaches include recording yourself so you can actually hear the tic and count how often you use it during a conversation, slowing down when you’re speaking to catch yourself before saying the phrase, getting more comfortable with silence and pauses, and so on.

It’s Raining Sexist Men

I recently started working at a male-dominated office. Besides the mansplaining, I’ve been shocked at how openly these men talk about women in a disgusting way. During my first week, the president was talking to my cubicle mate about false rape accusations and how they ruin men’s lives. He even turned to me and said, “Not to be offensive.” But it was offensive. I don’t know if I should call out the BS, let it slide and work for the paycheck I need, or quit and return to retail while I search for my next job after a year of being laid off. I don’t want to condone this kind of behavior. I’m confused and stressed, and dreading going to this office is quickly turning into depression. What do I do? — Anonymous

It’s unfair that we often have to choose between speaking up about something problematic, unsafe or even illegal — or keeping the jobs we need to provide for ourselves and our families. The president knows he was saying something offensive because of his aside to you. When your other colleagues discuss women inappropriately, they know it is wrong. First, document any incidents so you can identify what happened and when. Is there an H.R. person you can share concerns with? Staying quiet will only make you unhappier, and you shouldn’t have to tolerate unchecked misogyny for a paycheck. If you can’t say anything, no one would fault you. We do what we must. But if you can push back, do. Share the statistics, for example, on false accusations, and how rare they are. When they say something offensive, point it out. If worse comes to worst, you can go back to retail and renew your job search knowing you stood up for yourself and refused to tolerate unacceptable behavior.

Feeling Left Behind

I am 30. My current job doesn’t allow me much bandwidth to date, but I am feeling so behind. It is hard to be a queer person feeling isolated, while knowing dating is not what I need right now to grow. (Higher on the priority list is figuring out my career path, finding my community of friends, deciding where I am living next year.) But I’ve been feeling so unmotivated with work. How am I supposed to figure myself out when I can’t shake the lonely feeling that has now snaked into my day job? How do I not feel like a 30-something-year-old loser when everyone else around me seems to be happily paired? Why can’t I just be happy alone while I figure out how I want to build my career path forward? I feel so stuck and miserable. Any words of wisdom? — Anonymous

You’re not a loser. You’re young, and you have a big life ahead. Try to reframe your thinking. You aren’t being left behind. You are moving at your own pace. And yes, it’s important to be happy with yourself, but it’s also just fine if you don’t love being alone. I find it way overrated. If you’re feeling lonely and isolated, maybe dating is what you need. Work isn’t everything. It won’t keep you warm at night. It won’t take you to a fun movie or to play pickleball or whatever the youth are up to. While you’re figuring out who you are, why not go on a few dates? Maybe you can meet someone on a similar journey, and you can figure out who you are together. I didn’t get married until I turned 45, and though there were a lot of lonely years while getting there, it was absolutely worth the wait. I’m not saying you’re going to wait that long. Instead, I am saying there is no right or wrong timeline for how you live your life or when you meet the person (or people) you’re meant to be with. Instead of thinking of yourself as stuck or behind, try to appreciate the possibility of where you are right now, with so many opportunities, both personally and professionally, that you are yet to discover.

Roxane Gay is the author, most recently, of “Opinions: A Decade of Arguments, Criticism, and Minding Other People’s Business” and a contributing Opinion writer. Write to her at [email protected] . More about Roxane Gay

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VIDEO

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"The dog ate my homework" excuse won't work
The Dog Ate My Homework
The Dog Ate My Homework Lesson 2

COMMENTS

Where Did The Phrase "The Dog Ate My Homework" Come From?
Forrest Wickman, a writer for Slate, describes the legend of the 6th-century Saint Ciarán of Clonmacnoise as the alleged first recorded "the dog ate my homework" story. According to the tale, Saint Ciarán had a tame young fox that would take his writings to his master for him. One day, the fox grew up and decided to eat the leather strap ...
The dog ate my homework
The dog ate my homework. " The dog ate my homework " (or " My dog ate my homework ") is an English expression which carries the suggestion of being a common, poorly fabricated excuse made by schoolchildren to explain their failure to turn in an assignment on time. The phrase is referenced, even beyond the educational context, as a sarcastic ...
etymology
The phrase was actually built up through a series of sentences like, ' My dog chewed it up ' and ' My cat chewed it up and I had no time to do it over. ' These sentences were first used in the 1965 comic novel, Up the Down Staircase. But it mainly became popular in 1974 when a book was written with the title, ' The Cat Ate My Gym.
early history of the phrase 'the dog ate my homework'
The phrase the dog ate my homework and variants are used as, or denote, an unconvincing or far-fetched excuse: - for failing to hand in school homework, and, by extension: - for any failure to do or produce what was expected. The earliest mention that I have found of a person blaming a dog for their own unpreparedness is from More Memories: Being Thoughts about England spoken in America ...
Did Anybody Ever Believe The Excuse "The Dog Ate My Homework"?
The phrase continued to grow more popular. Between 1990 and 2000, the New York Times wrote articles with headlines such as "Beyond 'Dog Ate My Homework' " and "Homework Help Sites (Or ...
Sometimes The Dog Really Does Eat Your Homework : NPR
Last week, we brought you the story of how the phrase "The Dog Ate My Homework" came to be and how it morphed into a palpably ridiculous excuse. Turns out, sometimes its not an excuse at all ...
Where did that doggone phrase come from?
A 1977 article from Alaska's Daily News-Miner describes the difficulty students faced in coming up with a new excuse since "'My dog ate my term paper' is no longer acceptable." The excuse was ...
Can The Dog Still Eat Your Homework? : NPR
It may be the best known bad excuse for being unprepared: "The Dog Ate My Homework." But where does the phrase come from and how has it changed over the years? Weekend Edition host Scott Simon ...
My Doggy Ate My Homework by Dave Crawley
My Doggy Ate My Homework. By Dave Crawley. "My doggy ate my homework. He chewed it up," I said. But when I offered my excuse. My teacher shook her head. I saw this wasn't going well. I didn't want to fail. Before she had a chance to talk,
the dog ate my homework
(cliché, also attributively) A stereotypical unconvincing excuse for not completing school homework, or (by extension) not meeting one's obligations. 2011 May 6, Damian Carrington, "Environment action delays blamed on 'dog ate my homework' excuses", in The Guardian‎[1], archived from the original on 2022-08-24: Their reasons for missed deadlines ...
The dog ate my homework
Definition of the dog ate my homework in the Idioms Dictionary. the dog ate my homework phrase. What does the dog ate my homework expression mean? Definitions by the largest Idiom Dictionary. ... "I can't tell my teacher that the dog ate my homework!" B: "Come on, a bad excuse is better than none." See also: ate, dog, homework.
My dog ate my homework
My dog ate my homework. Posted by Steven on March 28, 2010 at 19:37. Where did the phrase "My dog ate my homework" come from? Phrase Finder. My dog ate my homework - the meaning and origin of this phrase.
Learn English Dog Ate My Homework ...
In this video, we'll explore the popular English idiom "my dog ate my homework" and its origins. Not only will you learn this fun phrase, but also improve yo...
The Dog Ate My Homework
September 19, 2017 National Purebred Dog Day®. The first known time that anyone used the "dog ate my homework" excuse was, according to writing expert and educationist, Christoper Simpson, in 1835. The student who was said to have uttered the now famous explanation for the absence of homework was Henry Pennywhistle, but other sources ...
A Dog Ate My Homework
A big, mean, homework eating dog attacked me and ate my report!" — Numbuh 5, Codename: Kids Next Door. Basically, this is any child character explaining to their teacher why they haven't done his homework. This will be either a lie, which may or may not be believed, or a Cassandra Truth. If it is the latter, expect them to also bring in the ...
30 Dog Idioms and Phrases
The idiom "sick as a dog" describes someone who feels very ill. The comparison of unwanted things to dogs was prevalent in the early 1700s, when the expression "sick as a dog" started. This was the period in which the phrase was first used. This is not because people did not like dogs at the time.
the days of the dog ate my homework are well behind us
Where Did The Phrase "The Dog Ate My Homework" Come From? Dogs are known as man's best friend. Dogs keep us safe, are hard workers … and can provide a handy excuse in a pi
Dog ate my homework
Definition of dog ate my homework in the Idioms Dictionary. dog ate my homework phrase. What does dog ate my homework expression mean? Definitions by the largest Idiom Dictionary. Dog ate my homework - Idioms by The Free Dictionary ... "I can't tell my teacher that the dog ate my homework!" B: "Come on, a bad excuse is better than none." See ...
PDF The Dog Ate My Disk, and Other Tales of Woe
teacher, "The dog ate my homework." It is intended as a gently humorous reminder to my students that I will not accept excuses for late work, and it, like the lengthy warning on my syllabus, has had absolutely no effect. With a show of energy and creativity that would be admirable if applied to the (missing) assignments in question, my students
My Dog Ate My Homework
From the book The Biggest Burp Ever. My dog ate my homework. and gobbled it up. My dog ate my homework. It's gonna be late. will just have to wait. My dog ate my homework. He swallowed it whole. with food in his bowl.
idioms
2. Dog ate my homework is a typical excuse used for someone not doing their homework. In this case "dog ate my car" it is just a joke as obviously a dog cannot eat someone's car. In other words the person was most likely late for something. Or couldn't drive to a particular place and this is just a funny excuse.
Dog ate my homework, the
Definition of dog ate my homework, the in the Idioms Dictionary. dog ate my homework, the phrase. What does dog ate my homework, the expression mean? Definitions by the largest Idiom Dictionary. ... "I can't tell my teacher that the dog ate my homework!" B: "Come on, a bad excuse is better than none." See also: ate, dog, homework.
My dog ate my homework (Past Simple and Past Continuous)
To do so, either (1) make a copy of it on your Google Drive (preferable method) or (2) download it in a Powerpoint format (but formatting might be a bit off so we can't guarantee that it will work well). In this lesson, students learn the difference between Past Simple and Past Continuous. They also practise using the two tenses.
Dogs at the Office: Who's Controlling Whom?
She's bringing an untrained dog to work, and his challenges are encroaching on your day-to-day work life. The easiest solution is to ask for a new office or officemate. But also, let's be real ...

Where Did The Phrase “The Dog Ate My Homework” Come From?

So where did the phrase come from?

When was the word homework created?

How we use this phrase now

WATCH: What's A Unique Homework Routine That Works?

word histories

early history of the phrase ‘the dog ate my homework’

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Why Do We Say “The Dog Ate My Homework”?

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My dog ate my homework

The Dog Ate My Homework

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A Dog Ate My Homework

Alternative Title(s): The Dog Ate My Homework

30 Dog Idioms and Phrases – Origins and Meanings

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Go to the Dogs

His/Her Bark Is Worse Than His/Her Bite

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Dog-Eat-Dog

Sick as a Dog

You Can’t Teach an Old Dog New Tricks

Every Dog Has Its Day

Call Off the Dogs

Dog-and-Pony Show

It’s a Dog’s Life

Like a Dog with Two Tails

Final Thoughts

the days of the dog ate my homework are well behind us

So where did the phrase come from?

When was the word homework created?

How we use this phrase now

WATCH: What's A Unique Homework Routine That Works?

The Truth Behind the “Dog Ate My Homework” Excuse: Exploring Its Effectiveness and Psychological Implications

By Happy Sharer

Introduction

An Examination of the Effectiveness of Using the “Dog Ate My Homework” Excuse

Interviewing Dog Owners on the Truth Behind This Excuse

Exploring the Psychological Implications of Using This Excuse

Call to Action

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word histories

early history of the phrase ‘the dog ate my homework’

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