"He's got dog in him"

I have definitely heard the saying in reference to them quitting, but, seeing as the APBT is one of the gamest creatures on earth, the term should be made to suggest real bravery.

 

this is some gay ****

 

On the subject of words/expressions changing their meaning, I keep hearing the word 'weary' being used by fight commentators to mean 'wary', e.g., "I think X isn't coming forward because he's weary of Y's power." That would imply that X is fatigued, rather than he's cautious. I'm talking about contexts where the guy commentating obviously meant cautious, there's no ambiguity. I'd never heard this until a few years back. Now it seems to be common, especially with ex-fighters. I see it in YT comments too.

I know language evolves, but in this case it needs to evolve tf back again, so I can understand what people are saying.

 

Etymology of words.

S**t used to be used as a medical term for feces.

The use of dog is interesting. It would make sense for it to originate from dog fights. When dogs are brought up to scratch, having that 'dog' in them could go both ways I suppose and determine them to be cowards or brave.

I guess in modern use we are associating dog with gameness which is fair, but seems very closely connected to the world of dog fighting.

The more I think about it the more the modern use probably makes more sense as dogs were bred to be 'game' even against animals they had no business fighting like bulls.

 

Terriers?

Google and our robot overlords say there are 360 distinct dog breeds. Thats a lot of diversity.

 

I don’t know if anyone in this thread has actually seen two aggressive dogs fight each other but they both start out mean, confident and aggressive until one gets too much of an upper hand and the the other dog whines, tucks his tail and withdraws ie, quits like a dog. That’s the source of the original meaning. There’s no room for interpretation or speculation.

I don’t think the second meaning completely evolved from the first. I think it’s sorta kinda its own thing that came from “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight…”

I’ve been coming on boxing forums since the mid to late 90’s and I’ve seen this exact same thread many many times. I can’t put an exact date on the first one but I’d say late 90’s/early 2000’s so the second meaning was well established by then.

 

This is people conflating leery (which means essentially the same as 'wary') and weary, which as you say, has never wavered from meaning 'tired'. I've hear people mis-use "weary" in this way quite commonly. Not a recent thing, I think, unless it's just getting worse(r).

 

I am remembering Floyd's "I'm a gorilla, I'm a dog" bit. Wasn't that from around the Pac fight, 11 years ago about?

 

Fair enough, but I brought up fighting dogs since boxing isn't that different than dog fights in a lot of ways. It's not that surprising if terms and lingo might cross over between the two at times, 'gameness' being an example used in both.

Regarding other breeds, I'd argue that all animals could often be viewed as cowardly to some extent. Having some amount of coward is going to ensure survival, which then leads to a greater chance to pass on genetic material. Win and mate if ya can, or run away and fight another day. Lions, tigers and bears all do this as well.

Another thing to consider is that dogs are pack animals that naturally makes the majority of them followers and not leaders.

A well trained dog should view it's owner as the alpha in its 'pack', so it very well may seem cowardly and obedient (that's preferably for a pet in most cases).

 

I agree that it could very well be possible that the second usage could have evolved separate from the first. Dogs get viewed in both ways for various reasons.

Regarding dog fighting though, that's kinda the same for virtually all animal fights between dominant males (and occasionally females; hyenas). Start off strong and confident, fight starts, whichever animal is losing quits and retreats...

This is the case for all species unless they're really stupid (bugs, lol).

Not trying to go too far off topic but since domestic dogs come from wolves, recently there has been some interesting news regarding wolf interactions in the wild since they are repopulating the US.

Wolves have been observed killing mountain lions or taking their kills, forcing mountain lions to change their diets. Also been more instances of wolves terrorizing black bears and even grizzlies in some circumstances. Interesting stuff.

 

I have never heard dog mean anything but "you're vicious and will go after someone". Unless they call the person a "yellow dog" which is different. But nah, dog means vicious

 

It isn't a "change" so much as it's always been used both ways. Or if not always, they've coexisted for at least a couple of generations now. You sort of need to suss it out with context.

"Quit like a dog / scurried away like a cur (or mangy mutt) with its tail between its legs" is an idiom as old as probably the USA itself, maybe older.

"He's got that dog in him" is at least 40 years old, and is prevalent in AAVE, likely stemming from the cultural practice of underground dogfighting.