Fun Stuff > CHATTER

Does anyone know why calling someone a dog is an insult in so many cultures?

<< < (2/3) > >>

oddtail:
Comments from my sister, who lives in a rural and poor part of Poland:

According to her, this basically boils down, in Polish culture, to dogs being both obedient and low maintenance. You don't really have to take care of a dog that well. You throw it a few scraps here and there, you kick it when you're annoyed with it, and it will stay loyal. For free.

By contrast, if you mistreat a cow, you will have a tangible, monetary loss. A cow or a pig is an investment. Horse? Forget even THINKING about treating it badly, horses were historically expensive. And Poland having had centuries of cavalry-related traditions and culture, horses have been glorified, treated as almost human and their intelligence and nobility overestimated. Also, horses are fragile animals and it's VERY easy to make one sick or injured.

Basically the answer boils down to: dogs are cheap, loyal and often take abuse with little protest. Many people are just dicks and want to mistreat anyone and anything they can, but they can get away with that with dogs. So dogs have a reputation of being "low" animals.

Granted, that's likely not the entire story, but I find it a compelling argument. Dogs are not objectively filthy or "unclean", but they are perceived as such, and the fact they don't need much taking care of leads to their perception as somehow "off".

(same reason pigs are stereotyped as dirty because they are often kept in conditions where they can't POSSIBLY stay clean. Despite the fact that pigs are highly intelligent and, given the opportunity, tend to avoid unhealthy substances and getting dirty more than some other farm animals. Basically, people take conditions they keep an animal in as proof of the animal's inherent character, in a weird and twisted bit of quasi-logic)

EDIT: dogs being very flexible in their diet is also probably a factor. Dogs eat all sorts of things we consider trash, including spoiled/rotten food, and that doesn't easily kill them. Ironically, their lax dietary requirements make them MORE similar to humans and MORE suited to coexisting with us, but the fact that a dog will eat most anything contributes to them being perceived as... less than dignified animals.

pwhodges:

--- Quote from: oddtail on 25 Jan 2018, 02:02 ---Dogs are not objectively filthy or "unclean", but they are perceived as such
--- End quote ---

At the pet level, a commonly made comparison is between cats burying their faeces and dogs not.  But in that matter dogs are closer to the (wild) norm than cats, actually.  Also, gardeners don't generally feel that cat faeces are an adequate replacement for the bulbs or whatever the cat dug up in the process...

de_la_Nae:
In white American Midwest culture, I have a theory one of the larger factors has to do with dogs being property. Like children.

Cornelius:
Where I live, if people say "such and such is a real dog", they generally mean that they are curt and abrasive, much like a guard dog snarling at you.

Jeemy:
In Scotland, you'd (if you were pretty low class) an ugly woman a dog. This would be a playground insult, or pub banter. It wouldn't be used (much as you wouldn't use most derogatory terms) anywhere else than in rough playgrounds, bars or streets.

Its a pretty bad insult, but kids and the childish are cruel, and there are far worse.

In England I am sure the same applies, but you might also in Queens English (Victorian insults) call somebody a cur - much like smorgasboards are always veritable, curs are usually mangy or rabid. Snoke calls Hux one in Episode VIII which I know is being discussed here.

A cur is a mongrel, mixed breed or stray dog.

So taking the feminine slight aside, calling somebody a dog here in the UK isn't a well-known, or much-used insult. But if you call a person, ignoring it being about their physical attributes, a cur or dog, it seems to imply:

Cowardice. Lack of Loyalty. Tendency to betray or turn on people or companies in business.

So dog when used as an insult I think implies a particular kind of dog; derived from cur. Either a house dog who is nothing more than a servant, lapdog, slave or pawn, or a mongrel dog which is of low breeding and morals, or a stray dog which has a survival instinct and is loyal only to itself; with the implication it would as soon bite the hand that feeds it as accept food.

early 13c., curre, earlier kurdogge used of both vicious dogs and cowardly dogs, probably from Old Norse kurra or Middle Low German korren both echoic, both meaning "to growl." Cf. Swedish dialectal kurre, Middle Dutch corre "house dog."

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page