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doggone! An allusive mitigation of the oath “God damn” One of the more direct cases where the inversion of “dog” as “god” is used. In this instance the purpose was to avoid yet allude to the word God. The word invites word play, as we see in the use of dog collar as an ironic allusion to clerical garb. The bumper sticker, “Dog is my co-pilot,” has come into greater use recently. The relationship invites the creation of palindromes, the most common of which is “Dog as a devil deified lived as a god.” Seen in variations of doggoneit, dog-goned, dog-gawned, etc. |
1. Whitney, William Dwight and Benjamin E. Smith. 1914. The Century dictionary and cyclopedia; with a new atlas of the world. A work of general reference in all departments of knowledge. New York: Century Co. Accessed from http:// www.global-language.com /century/. |
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About the illustration: Excerpted from the cover of Mort Walker's Lexicon of Comicana. Having grown up with Walker's Beetle Bailey comic strip, it seemed the perfect visual companion, this visual mitigation of an oath. |
2. Walker, Mort. 2000. Lexicon of Comicana. Lincoln, Neb.: iUniverse.com. cover. | ||||||
| see also: dog collar | Last updated: July 5, 2008 | ||||||
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