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19 Jan 13 - 06:06 AM (#3468406) Subject: Origins: The Dog's Bollocks From: Paul Reade Saying something is "The Dog's Bollocks", meaning it's the best you can get, the creme-de-la-creme, seems a curious description. Any ideas where it came from? Is it just used in the UK? |
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19 Jan 13 - 06:28 AM (#3468416) Subject: RE: Origins: The Dog's Bollocks From: GUEST,999 Here's a place to start. (Ranks up there with "the bee's knees".) |
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19 Jan 13 - 06:38 AM (#3468425) Subject: RE: Origins: The Dog's Bollocks From: GUEST Ian B I've known the term for over 40 years from my time in the "Andrew" where it meant being well dressed to go out for the evening. The standard for men was immaculate grey flannels, white shirt, tie, Dark Blue blazer and black shoes. It may come from DB meaning Dress Blues which was sometimes used as an acronym on party invites. Another contraction used was to describe someone, usually female, as "Just the Dogs", being considered a great compliment. Of course "a dog" meant just that! Hope this helps but who really knows where slang terms originate? |
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19 Jan 13 - 06:44 AM (#3468428) Subject: RE: Origins: The Dog's Bollocks From: Steve Shaw In polite company you can always substitute "dog's danglies". |
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19 Jan 13 - 06:58 AM (#3468437) Subject: RE: Origins: The Dog's Bollocks From: GUEST,999 LOLOL Mr Shaw, you can be a very funny man at times. (They've let you out, huh?) |
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19 Jan 13 - 07:48 AM (#3468460) Subject: RE: Origins: The Dog's Bollocks From: GUEST,999 My Great Dane is long, tall and gangly, He keeps himself sparkly and spangly, He prances with trollops And shows off his bollocks Which Steve in mixed comp'ny calls danglies. |
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19 Jan 13 - 07:51 AM (#3468463) Subject: RE: Origins: The Dog's Bollocks From: alex s Shame you can't get beefburgers at Tesco just now, but do try the meatballs. They are the dog's bollocks! |
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19 Jan 13 - 08:06 AM (#3468468) Subject: RE: Origins: The Dog's Bollocks From: Will Fly Alex, you beat me to the punch there! Talking of Tesco, I hear that two builders went into a branch dressed as a pantomime horse. They kept opening freezer doors and peering into the meat shelves saying, Mummy, mummy..." They were escorted politely to the door after causing gales of laughter among the shoppers. |
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19 Jan 13 - 08:20 AM (#3468475) Subject: RE: Origins: The Dog's Bollocks From: RTim There once was a beer made by Hobgoblin called - "Dog's Bollocks" Tim Radford |
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19 Jan 13 - 08:22 AM (#3468476) Subject: RE: Origins: The Dog's Bollocks From: GUEST,Eliza Just watched the panto horse on Youtube. Hilarious! I always thought that 'dog's bollocks' was a joke on 'bee's knees', which also gave rise to 'gnat's knickers'. |
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19 Jan 13 - 08:32 AM (#3468483) Subject: RE: Origins: The Dog's Bollocks From: Snuffy Simply the best: can't be licked. |
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19 Jan 13 - 08:58 AM (#3468493) Subject: RE: Origins: The Dog's Bollocks From: Paul Reade Not sure about "...can't be licked ...". One thing male dogs are known for is licking them. And the reason why they lick them ... Because they can! |
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19 Jan 13 - 10:20 AM (#3468534) Subject: RE: Origins: The Dog's Bollocks From: Snuffy They can but YOU can't lick 'em! |
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19 Jan 13 - 12:10 PM (#3468584) Subject: RE: Origins: The Dog's Bollocks From: GUEST,Dr Price, cookieless I used to work on the subs' desk at the South Wales Echo, and "dog's dick" used to be universal slang for an exclamation mark. |
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19 Jan 13 - 12:33 PM (#3468596) Subject: RE: Origins: The Dog's Bollocks From: GUEST, Paul Slade Partridge's Concise Dictionary of slang gives the original phrase as "dog's ballocks", but that's just a variant selling of "bollocks" so it doesn't help us much. The full entry in Partridge is: "dog's ballocks. The typographical colon-dash (:-). See dog's prick. - 2. Esp. in the phrase 'it sticks out like a dog's ballocks', said of something that the speaker considers patently obvious: low, since ca 1920." Dog's prick, incidentally, is given the same definition Dr Price gives it above: an exclamation mark. Cassell's Dictionary of Slang agrees with Partridge as far as the 1920s usage is concerned, adding that the meaning of "dog's bollocks" as "excellent" seems to date from the 1980s. My guess is that the switch in meaning occurred when someone noticed that both "dog's bollocks" and "bee's knees" were descriptions of a creature's body parts - a similarity that's accentuated by the fact that both phrases are plural - and started using one term in the sense of the other. "Dog's bollocks" has an appealing crudity about it which may have helped it to catch on. What I want to know, though, is why "up the stick" became a slang term to describe pregnancy. What stick, precisely? And why is ascending it deemed relevant in this context? |
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19 Jan 13 - 12:56 PM (#3468604) Subject: RE: Origins: The Dog's Bollocks From: RTim From The Wychwood Brewery: http://www.wychwood.co.uk/#/movies//hobgoblin/beers/16 Tim R |
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19 Jan 13 - 02:13 PM (#3468637) Subject: RE: Origins: The Dog's Bollocks From: GUEST,Lighter Haven't any of you Brits ever heard of the synonymous "cat's meow/ pajamas/ nuts/ ass"? Or just "the cats"? Over here we've never heard of the DBs, except via Partridge. There's also "The Monkey's Paw," but you'll agree that's something entirely different. |
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19 Jan 13 - 02:20 PM (#3468640) Subject: RE: Origins: The Dog's Bollocks From: GUEST,Eliza No, Lighter, I've never heard of those. It's always dogs here! |
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19 Jan 13 - 04:11 PM (#3468680) Subject: RE: Origins: The Dog's Bollocks From: alex s Sorry about that, Will. I also have to say that I have been out with a few dogs in my time...but they didn't have bollocks. |
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19 Jan 13 - 04:15 PM (#3468683) Subject: RE: Origins: The Dog's Bollocks From: Bert While we are at it, a dogs cock is another name for an end splice. |
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19 Jan 13 - 04:16 PM (#3468684) Subject: RE: Origins: The Dog's Bollocks From: GUEST,Eliza And I've been out with a few men who talked absolute bollocks but turned out not to have any. |
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20 Jan 13 - 08:43 AM (#3468939) Subject: RE: Origins: The Dog's Bollocks From: alex s Nice one, Eliza. |
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20 Jan 13 - 09:39 AM (#3468957) Subject: RE: Origins: The Dog's Bollocks From: TheSnail This was a favourite phrase of a workmate of mine. He was also an enthusiastic juggler. One day he cam in and announced "You ought to see these juggling balls my sister gave me for my birthday. They're the dog's bollocks!" |
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20 Jan 13 - 12:02 PM (#3469005) Subject: RE: Origins: The Dog's Bollocks From: Steve Shaw These expressions all mean the same thing. You couldn't put a nun's chuff between 'em. For the uninitiated, a nun's chuff = two gnats' cocks. |
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22 Jan 13 - 08:02 PM (#3470181) Subject: RE: Origins: The Dog's Bollocks From: GUEST,Chord strangler sans cookie I have always heard that is a corruption arising from product packaging. While some items were described as boxed standard, the more expensive were called boxed de luxe. This was eventually corrupted into bog standard and dog's bollox..M |
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23 Jan 13 - 06:44 AM (#3470314) Subject: RE: Origins: The Dog's Bollocks From: GUEST,Dáithí I used to work in a design studio many years ago - there the term "midge's dick" was a measurement (usually in typography or artwork) of anything smaller than a couple of millimetres... |
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23 Jan 13 - 08:12 AM (#3470347) Subject: RE: Origins: The Dog's Bollocks From: GUEST,Lighter You mean a "gnat's eyelash"? (Or, in some circles, a "c**t hair." I once knew a guy who called roughly the same measurement a "fart skin.") |
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24 Jan 13 - 06:23 AM (#3470707) Subject: RE: Origins: The Dog's Bollocks From: GUEST,JHW Dog's Bollocks sounds like rhyming slang but I've tried my rhyming dictionary with no revelation |
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24 Jan 13 - 06:58 PM (#3470960) Subject: RE: Origins: The Dog's Bollocks From: framus Ref Chord strangler. This theory proposed on "QI", BBC, by Stephen Fry. He ascribed it to the two original versions of the toy "Meccano" many moons ago. |