CSBJ Daily

While lounging about in Tony’s last night, I was alerted to a new phrase in [american] english: It’s a doggy dog[g] world.This came to me from school teachers who have not only heard students using the phrase, but also adults. At first we were all surprised and dismayed, noting the derivation from It’s a dog-eat-dog world. However, if you think about it, it’s truer this way - not only is this modern world highly competitive, but it belongs to the most dogged of dogs. Only a dog who is very doggy will do well.

Consider, of course, Snoop Dogg. By becoming a marketable commodity and refining himself into a lasting product, he has done well in this world where mere talent and luck lead only to mediocrity. One must take these skills and turn them into mad skillz. Adapt!

If doggy dog is a malaprop for dog-eat-dog, then it bears mentioning that dog-eat-dog is actually a derivation itself. There must have been some day a hundred years ago when teachers gathered and commiserated over the change from dog does not eat dog [from the latin Canis caninam non est]. The phrase was originally an observation that one is good to one’s own kind. But the industrial revolution began to show how we humans have fewer principles than our faithful best friends.

So will doggy dog replace dog-eat-dog? I don’t know, but it is a world where one must be more than one’s self, um… out there.